Kanye West Opens Up About Making ‘Ye,’ Being Diagnosed With a ‘Mental Condition’

Kanye West Opens Up About Making ‘Ye,’ Being Diagnosed With a ‘Mental Condition’

Kanye West has granted the first interview since he dropped his latest album, Ye.

In the new chat with radio host Big Boy, the rapper talked about how he scrapped what he was working on to make a completely new album, the reasoning behind naming it Ye, and also the battles with mental illness.

“I wanted something to match that energy” that the “universe is giving me,” said Kanye of his new music at the Wyoming Ye listening party event, adding that he revamped the LP after being called out for making a statement that slavery is a “choice”.

“We just sat there and really honed in on the words,” he conitnued. “Also, we know now, it’s all headlines … every bar can be used … I took a bar off the album. It was just too sensitive about that topic and stuff.”

“I believe ‘Ye’ is the most commonly used word in the Bible, and in the Bible it means ‘you,’” he said of the album’s title. “So I’m you, I’m us, it’s us. It went from Kanye, which means the only one, to just Ye — just being a reflection of our good, our bad, our confused, everything. The album is more of a reflection of who we are.”

He also spoke candidly about his mental illness, saying, “I’m so blessed and so privileged because think about people that have mental issues that are not Kanye West, that can’t go and make that [album] and make you feel like it’s all good.”

“I’ve never been diagnosed and I was like 39 years old,” West revealed, clarifying that he meant “diagnosed with a mental condition,” he added. “It’s not a disability, it’s a superpower,” he told Big Boy, echoing his lyric about bipolar disorder on Ye.

Watch the full interview below.