“I’m a creative genius.” Kanye West’s two-hour long SHOWstudio interview

“People’s misunderstanding of me is a misunderstanding of themselves,” says Kanye West in the latest In Camera session from SHOWstudio, which sees Lou Stoppard in conversation with him for nearly two hours. The interview series, which launched in 2003, is one of the platform’s many unconventional interview formats, and allows a global online audience as well as friends, family and peers of the interviewee to submit questions answered during a live and unedited broadcast. Speaking candidly about class, race, the pressures of fame and misogyny in rap, Kanye answered questions from figures like Anna Wintour, Nick Knight, Boris Johnson (who asked how Kanye would improve London), as well as his wife Kim Kardashian and Lou Stoppard herself.

Asked why he feels the need to refer to himself as a creative genius, Kanye answered, “Because otherwise I’m called celebrity, I’m called nigger, I’m called rapper. And when they used the word celebrity, nigger or rapper it’s not in a positive way. All those words can be used in an extremely positive way… but that’s not the way it’s used. So I have to define who I am. All of my aspirations are things that currently only 60-year-old white people do. So I have to redefine and let people know exactly who I am. It’s not letting them know by wearing a suit, or letting them know by wearing a Rolex, or letting them know by bragging how much money a sponsorship made on top of a rap, it’s letting them know by saying, ‘Let’s start with this: I’m a creative genius.’ And it’s proven, and I will continue to prove it.”

Watch the full interview below.