Transcript: Ye Second Stream With Digital Nas
Ye: Let me go tell this pretty nigga that just fucked every single bitch. Nigga, if you ain't fucked as many bitches or made as much money as me, then I'm not gonna, be quiet, nigga. I don't wanna make the amount of money you make or fuck less bitches than the amount of bitches you fuck and shit. That's what would be weird.
Ye: Also, I just sat back and sometimes just look at some stuff that I made or just music and think about it. Why even have a conversation with it?
Ye: That'd be my big thing. If you'd be like, nigga, you cannot talk to me. You can't talk to my daughter. You can't mention this shit. You need to go mention that shit over there. But guess what? You mentioned that shit over there. Don't come back over here. It's fine. Matter of fact, I can't tell you what the fuck to ever do to mention like Cardi. I can't tell him. I actually can't.
Ye: Well, I can, actually, because my daughter and shit, like, tell the nigga, but niggas gonna do what they want. But do what you want. But the ramifications, you can't come back over here if you did that.
Digital Nas: Yeah.
Ye: It's just simple as that. Whatever loyalty, blah, blah. I don't think my perspective on loyalty is, like, be loyal to yourself.
Digital Nas: Right.
Ye: Be loyal. Like, it's just... Well, it's like, if you, like, I even use, like, the ramifications, though. It's like... Move how you want to move in your mix. Like don't come in my mix and then be like moving how you want to move. Like, you know, it's the way you got to handle it over here. You ain't finna mix. Like what the niggas say, the dad or the grandma come to the porch and say, y'all take that shit down there.
Digital Nas: Yeah.
Ye: I'm saying, like, y'all need to take that shit down there, man. And here, like, this always has to be done, so.
Digital Nas: It is a dawn event.
Digital Nas: But even, like, even still about, like, that controller analogy, it's like, basically... People don't know the analogy.
Ye: Well, go ahead, but you said...
Digital Nas: No, I'm just talking to you, like, not them. But, like, even, like, that controller analogy, like, basically that happened to you over and over and over and over again.
Ye: Yeah, basically, like, because I got, because I had, like, $5 million of Balenciaga. People thought they could come to the warehouse and take some. Even if they took pictures in it and shit. Now they own it online, visually and shit. Like, and it's like, just because I got all this, if I trust you to be in my house and I'm paying for these, like, Barista coffees or you're in the Donda presence and you can like flex on people when you're like, oh, I work at Donda. I was part of Donda. It's like I was one of the designers or fit model, whatever. That should be enough. But nah, it got to go extra. You got to like steal something, take something, you know, coercion behind your back and stuff. But that's just the nature of men. Also, that's
Ye: That's what I tell myself, like, could I be more forgiven? Maybe in a different life, but that's not the king that I am. Not now. Charlie might say he's jealous. It's like, yes, nigga, I am a jealous God. The fuck, you got kings that are jealous, they're like, ravish, you know, whatever, whatever the word is.
Digital Nas: In my honest opinion, based on what you've been through, I think, like, you've been too nice.
Ye: Exactly, that's my whole shit. That's why I be having a... Because I want to get, you know why niggas be nice? Because giving sets off the highest dopamines and serotonins in your body. They're saying the best feeling that you can actually get is to give. They're saying that you get is to give. That's something, I don't know if AI ever gonna get to that point. These robots that Elon make, I don't know if they ever gonna get to that point. Just this feeling. You know one thing,
Ye: What I think to never give up on humanity or say like, yo, humanity, like damn, I had a way I want to word it. It was like something about, oh, I believe in humanity. What is the main thing that makes me believe in humanity? It's when you drive in your car, right? You basically got to trust that the 1,000, 100, 1,000, 2,000 people, 100, or 500 people that drive by you are not gonna cross over in that medium. And that's every, Nas, can you sit back a little bit so I can see her? That you gotta trust all these people, and that's humanity.
Ye: If you are still alive, how many people have you ridden in a car with, or when someone drives you, let's say you're driving a car, How many cars have passed you on your left side in your lifetime? Any one of those cars could have taken your life. You know what I'm saying? That's an example of me believing in humanity. That's my example of when you see a video of somebody helping an old lady across the street.
Ye: Here's some obvious shit to say, because you see niggas getting shot at a gas station, or just like people on Twitter just watching people get shot in the head Back to back to back to back to back like that is a available thing on Twitter and make you be like, okay, where is humanity?
Digital Nas: Yeah, you know, then it desensitize you as well.
Ye: And then you go and start moving and doing things that because you've just seen things and normalize things that's really just not.
Digital Nas: Yeah.
Ye: How do we get past how I get past my trauma? How do we get past traumas in general? Here's another thing. Is narcissism and self-centeredness the same thing?
Digital Nas: I don't think so.
Ye: I think in order for you to be an artist, you have to be a narcissist. I think, I believe that all artists are, we was having this talk, we was having this talk, all artists are narcissists. You have to literally be a narcissist to be an artist. You have to be so selfish because that is how you make the art. There's no other way around it. You cannot be an artist without being a narcissist. That's just truly what I believe. And self-centeredness is more so like,
Ye: Self-centeredness is the exact opposite of you. Self-centeredness would be like, man, ain't nobody working on this but me. You know what I'm saying?
Ye: I did that on Bully, though. Really, really, no, we had writers we had.
Ye: Quentin Miller, Don Tolliver, Ty Dolla, Malik Youssef, and Billy Walsh also wrote on Bully with me. But I was really big on Bully. You know, after the Vultures, you know, just for Vultures 2, this is my first album that was not a number one in my entire career. And who did they use to do that? Taylor Swift's artists. And this nigga I never heard of, Monte Lipman or some, you know, to go. And then,
Ye: It's like people were like, I don't like this album, I don't like this album. But the crazy thing is, there's crazy songs like Field Trip is on that album. That shit like 530 is on the album. It was originally from Donald Trump. But afterwards, I was like, man, I'm just getting on the ASR. I'm going to chop up some shit myself. So I was really big when I did that album of not allowing other producers To work on the album. But like, I work with other producers on Don. I'm working with other people on World War III. So I like that, bringing people in. But sometimes you gotta have like these quiet moments too.
Ye: To just, you know, express your exact thoughts. I be big on like, you know, we're in the room, we were working the other day and it's like different people in. And sometimes people just be throwing off the,
Ye: Their ideas just throw off.
Digital Nas: You didn't have to say the names and shit.
Ye: Nah, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. I ain't gonna say the names, but like when Ro was in here. It does throw it off. It's like when you told me, when we go to the office, don't mess with the clothes, that throws it off. I'm supposed to be making music. It's like a lot of the times I would be in the office messing with the clothes, thinking like, I'm just thinking like,
Digital Nas: But I can see how that messes up the vibe.
Ye: I like how you asked him. I'm going to go ahead and give another version of the Virgil example or the explanation that I gave you earlier when you were like, oh, I understand that. Because there's so many layers to unpack. And it is the most traumatizing thing that has happened to me, which is a win for the people who intended for it to happen, which is the French banks, right? Because so Yeezy season one, the front row has, you know, every amazing, you know, influential celebrity possible. Like at this time,
Ye: Drake and Puff had got into it. And it literally was a moment of confrontation because Drake was like, I have to come to this show where Jay-Z had to stand in between Drake and Puff. But Puff's coming to the show, Drake is coming to the show. People are like, I am coming to see Yeezy season one. Then it got four times the views of the Chanel fashion show, which was the highest viewed fashion show at that time. It was like the culmination. It showed there was a new power. Here comes the new power. And then the old power saw that and they were shook. So what'd they do? They got on Twitter and said, fuck Ye. Oh, hell no. They went and offered Ye a deal.
Ye: Right, it's like Black Panthers run in, they give them jobs, right? And okay, Louis Vuitton, obviously, it's like they got all the stores, it's embedded in nigga culture, I was known as the Louis Vuitton Don. So the head, the owner, richest man in the world, Bernard Arnault, offers me a deal. He sends his son in, Alexandre Arnault, and he offers me this deal to, it's the same thing they did with Rihanna, it's like,
Ye: I'll just do a clothing line.
Digital Nas: Yeah.
Ye: And so we get into negotiation and the whole thing is you're like, oh, we're going to get because it's not really thinking like Sway was saying, like to just go to Italy, go to China and go. We don't know. We don't have the access to the factories or the information readily. Like our dads are knapping art. I know my dad wouldn't even want me to be in wrap or clothing, you know, so. We're trying to figure it out. So we're thinking the best thing to do is like to be the face of a brand and then design like really we're like I want to design for Nike more than I want to design for Adidas than to be our own Nike to be our own Adidas. Because you say Sway be like oh you used to be your own Adidas. Like how? How Sway? How? And he didn't have that answer. You know that's a journey that I had to go on and gain and lose and be traumatized and go to the hospital and back to
Ye: To be able to be in a position right now, my website's still down and I had to like really figure out how to get it back in position. All right. So back to the idea, the verge was the idea at this point, right? Um, so we're working, we're together every day and I'm fighting, you know, you're kind of eating fish sticks. You got, I'm saying I'm hitting, I'm paying for the.
Ye: Apartments, where we staying at. Paying for the hotels, paying for the flights. He's my assistant. You understand what I'm saying? And putting all the ideas in his laptop. And we're going to these meetings. And one time we go to this Celine fashion show, back when Phoebe Philo was at Celine. And she says, this girl, Anna Della Russo, this stylist, he's standing there like a foot behind me and a foot over me, like always. And Anna De La Rosa says, be careful about him, he's gonna take your place. And I'm like, I ain't what? You know, I'm just thinking, it hit me, I listened, but I say, well, let's keep working. You know, this inertia, I'm gonna get to where we need to go.
Ye: So let's go to Yeezy Fashion Show, you know, which is a big deal, because I left Nike, and Nike and Louis Vuitton was like, they're like on the same level in niggas' minds, right? So this is my return after leaving Nike, where the D-Disc will come out, and boom, it's the biggest thing on the fucking planet. The 350, first time I saw the 350. Instead of the 950, it's a lot of people's favorite Yeezy. So, Bernard Arnault offers me a clothing deal right after that show, because it's so big. The, pause, the...
Ye: So I go to Paris, I got butterflies, sitting in a room with Heron Preston and Virgil, might have been, I don't think Matt Williams was there at the time, but Matt Williams worked for me before at Donda. And I had the meeting with Bernard Arnault. He comes in the meeting for life. It's with Michael Burke, who brought me to Fendi. And I moved to Rome right before I did Dark Fantasy. So it was like 2011. Because I kept on pausing music to do clothes. Clothing is a big dream of mine. But to do it at that level, at the level, not like the way I've seen it before. Like I love Fat Farm. I love all that. But
Ye: We wanted to do it Ralph level. We wanted to do it Louis Vuitton. We wanted to do it Nike level. It just felt bigger. Like, honestly, you know what it is. So I go into this meeting. Bernardo knows that he comes for, you know, five minutes. I wanted to, like, do shit like we did in record label time. You know, like, get on a table and play Jesus Walks or something. Like, put together a presentation for him and shit like that. So then the meeting goes well. I said, yes, we're going to sign you to Louis Vuitton. We want to do the Kanye West line. So I'm like, and it's like, yo, for like a nigga to get this position. And I already got the position of like,
Ye: Just did Watch the Throne, like me and Jay-Z are best friends type shit, you know, Drake's pulling up to the show, Puff's pulling up to the show, Rihanna's pulling up to the show, Justin Bieber's pulling up to the show, you know, so, uh, Jim Morda headed GQ at the time, pulling up to the show, um, so it's about to be, like, for the king, I'm the king, like, I don't want to be like, he's the king, I'm now pulling my, I'm making a, a partnership between
Ye: Where I'm gonna be able to bring back another level of product, enjoyment, and entertainment from my kingdom. This is my kingdom. Culture is my kingdom. Meaning like, before there was a Travis Drake, J. Cole, Kendrick, this, that, that. Me, Ye, Dark, I mean, Dark Fantasy too, I was gonna say Graduation. I was all those things, including a Lil Wayne verse on my album type shit. You know what I'm saying? Including.
Digital Nas: Exactly.
Ye: You know what I mean? So some of y'all always feel like Don Toliver and T-Pain, they just, it's like things that remind me that it reminds me of Andrew. Chops and Soulja Boy just came in my brain for a second. Like, Soulja Boy is like the top, top, if not the most important person in rap ever. Like, at least like top five most important people in hip hop, period. Like, this shit right here. YouTube, internet, blah, blah, like that. Soulja Boy.
Digital Nas: Soulja Boy.
Ye: They always leave him out.
Digital Nas: Exactly.
Ye: We all want niggas to mention Ye and 2 Foes. We got to mention Soulja Boy. Everybody mention Soulja Boy. So...
Digital Nas: So back to, think about Migos, Soulja Boy.
Ye: Everybody came from Soulja Boy. They were sleeping at his house. I like how Will.i.am say, yo, there's certain people where if this person wasn't here, there'd be like 10 other people that wouldn't be there. It's like Trav, because there's a Ye, Drake, you know what I mean? And then it's funny, you get these combinations. You get like, with Drake, it's like,
Ye: Wayne and me, you know what I'm saying? Because he's inspired by that. With Cardi, it's me and Rocky, you know? So you got a couple of these. Both of people have to get equal credit on these things. So that fucking Don Talbot song, I'm going to have him play a little bit. Stays in identification, breaking.
Digital Nas: Yeah.
Digital Nas: We ain't do the professional set up. This is real raw. We're going off the MacBook, so bear with us. They like the quality, the quality.
Ye: Okay, you don't like the quality then? Nigga, you don't like, how about this quality?
Event Date: April 8, 2025
