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It’s been quite some time since Kanye West pulled back his proverbial mask for an interview, so naturally the rapper had a world of knowledge, and perception, to share. 

On the brink of the June 18th release of his sixth album “Yeezus,” Kanye West showed a rare side of himself when he agreed to sit down and somewhat open up to Times writer Jon Caramanica about the rare relation between his arrogance, his lineage and his message for the world. 

In the Q&A style interview, Yeezy let the world in on everything from the messages behind some of his greatest musical pieces, to the struggle that he has with the public eye. But when it came to talking about his soon-to-be-born child with Kim Kardashian, Kanye made one thing very clear: this is his baby, not America’s baby, and he doesn’t have to talk about it if he doesn’t want to.

Check out some excerpts from the interview below.  

On the reasoning behind his rants:

Anytime I’ve had a big thing that’s ever pierced and cut across the Internet, it was a fight for justice. Justice. And when you say justice, it doesn’t have to be war. Justice could just be clearing a path for people to dream properly. It could be clearing a path to make it fair within the arena that I play. You know, if Michael Jordan can scream at the refs, me as Kanye West, as the Michael Jordan of music, can go and say, “This is wrong.”

On his beef with the Grammy Awards:

I don’t know if this is statistically right, but I’m assuming I have the most Grammys of anyone my age, but I haven’t won one against a white person. But the thing is, I don’t care about the Grammys; I just would like for the statistics to be more accurate.

When asked if his instinct has ever led him astray [In regards to the Taylor Swift interruption at the MTV Video Music Awards.]

It’s only led me to complete awesomeness at all times. It’s only led me to awesome truth and awesomeness. Beauty, truth, awesomeness. That’s all it is.

Kanye explains the point where he knew his valued anonymity would be stripped:

Yeah, I held on to the last moments of it. I knew when I wrote the line “light-skinned friend look like Michael Jackson” [from the song “Slow Jamz”] I was going to be a big star. At the time, they used to have the Virgin music [stores], and I would go there and just go up the escalator and say to myself, “I’m soaking in these last moments of anonymity.” I knew I was going to make it this far; I knew that this was going to happen.

On his appearance on Keeping Up with the Kardashians, where he cleans out Kim’s closet: 

That was from a place of love. It’s hard when people read things in a lot of different ways. You know, the amount of backlash I got from it is when I decided to not be on the show anymore. And it’s not that I have an issue with the show; I just have an issue with the amount of backlash that I get. Because I just see like, an amazing person that I’m in love with that I want to help.

On his thoughts about parenthood: 

That is a really interesting, powerful question. One of the things was just to be protective, that I would do anything to protect my child or my child’s mother. As simple as that.

Have you ever felt as fiercely protective over anything as you are feeling now about those things?

I don’t want to explain too much into what my thoughts on, you know, fatherhood are, because I’ve not fully developed those thoughts yet. I don’t have a kid yet. I just don’t want to talk to America about my family. Like, this is my baby. This isn’t America’s baby.

Someone has been catching up on his episodes of Scandal!

Kanye goes on in the interview to reveal that he will, indeed, one day be the new Steve Jobs. Just as Biggie had to die for there to be a Jay-Z, he believes Steve Jobs’ passing is his queue to step up to the plate. 

And that, boys and girls, was a bowl of hip-hop intellect served fresh by Mr. West. 

Check out the full interview over at The New York Times.