Kanye West: 'I don’t want people to look at me as a god'
US rap star Kanye West is no stranger to making ostentatious self-comparisons – he has called himself anything from Steve Jobs and Walt Disney to Shakespeare and even Jesus.
But his usual show of extreme self-confidence has taken a weird turn, with him comparing himself to a chair, a servant, a driver and a maid in a recent interview with UK’s The Sunday Times.
"For all haters, I’m not saying I’m Da Vinci, but I feel it’s right for any human being to compare themselves to anything.
"I could compare myself to this chair, I’m saying, 'I've got all this on my back, so I’m a chair.' People get really uptight about my comparisons, but I’m an extreme speaker, and I speak through comparisons," said West, 38, ahead of his headlining set at Glastonbury festival this Saturday (June 27).
But it did not end there.
During the emotional outburst, he added: "If you want to put a box and a title on me, box me and title me as a servant. I don’t want people to look at me as a god, I don’t want people to look at me as a king, I don’t want people to look at me in terms of how many Grammys I have.
"I want you to look at me like the driver – not even a car service, or a cab driver. I want you to look at me like the maid, you know, that cleans your house. And I might be a tough maid, but if I come to you and say ‘termites’, you better believe me. Because I saw the termites."
Okay... whatever you say, Yeezus.
People whom West has compared himself to.
To promote his last album Yeezus in 2013, he told The New York Times while on the topic of his "trend-setting abilities": "I think what Kanye West is going to mean is something similar to what Steve Jobs means. I am undoubtedly, you know, Steve of Internet, downtown, fashion, culture. Period. By a long jump."
In a famous rant during a Paris show in 2013, West touched on pop commercialism and told fans: "I am Picasso, I am Michelangelo, I’m Walt Disney, I’m Steve Jobs."
To his audience at a show in Atlanta in 2012, West told anyone who would listen: "As a man I am flawed, but my music is perfect... You can go back to Beethoven, but as far as this lifetime goes, this is all you got."
(Warning: Use of vulgarities in video)
Why stop at actual people? West even took to making links with a fictional character from children's novel Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.
He said in a radio interview with Washington’s WPGC 95.5 station in 2013: "I want to be as unrealistic as possible. The worst thing about me comparing myself to Steve Jobs is that it’s too realistic of an idea. What I need to say is I’m more like Willy Wonka."
"I’m standing up, and I’m telling you, I am Warhol. I am the No. 1 most impactful artist of our generation. I am Shakespeare in the flesh," he told Eminem’s radio station Shade 45 in 2013.
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