Kanye West Lectures at Oxford, Discusses Grammys, Nicki Minaj, The Matrix

Photo by Erez Avissar

This afternoon, Kanye West addressed students at the Oxford Guild Society (a campus institution devoted to business and networking) at the University of Oxford in England. The lecture arrives not long after West announced So Help Me God, the follow-up to 2013′s Yeezus. Read the full transcript of the 20-minute lecture here, via The Tab.

Among many topics, Kanye talked about all the critical acclaim for 2010′s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. “One of the best thing about the album was Nicki Minaj, and that she kicked my ass, on my own song, on the best album of the last 25 years,” he said. “I was exiled from my own country, came back with my magnum opus, and I was beat by a girl.”

He said he wished he would have attended the Art Institute of Chicago. “My goal, if I was going to do art, fine art, would have been to become Picasso or greater,” he said. “That always sounds so funny to people, comparing yourself to someone who has done so much, and that’s a mentality that suppresses humanity.”

He also criticized the cost of clothing, which has been a recent theme of his interviews. (His Adidas line is set to launch with a high price point.) “Clothing should be like food,” he said. “There should never be a $5,000 sweater. You know what should cost $5,000? A car.”

Kanye also called The Matrix “the Bible of the post-information age”, and continued to rail against the Grammys. “I was joking with an interviewer earlier today,” he said. “People talk about the number of viewers the Brits get, or the number of viewers the Grammys get. They need to do award shows for the Nobel Peace Prize, but I guess that doesn’t sell as many MasterCard commercials.”

Read the whole thing here.

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