Kanye West 登上《PAPER》杂志封面，并谈论儿时在中国生活经历

Kanye West 日前登上了《PAPER》杂志「American Dream」（美国梦）特刊封面，并由著名摄影师 Jackie Nickerson 为其打造了一组形象大片。在接受《PAPER》杂志作者 Gabby Bess 的采访中，Yeezy 畅谈了自己心中「美国梦」的定义，并回忆到 10 岁时在中国生活的经历及对自己成长的影响（见以下原文) ; 此外，Dr.West 还讲述了 15 岁时在 Gap 工作的经历如何渐渐打开了他对时尚世界的兴趣大门，之后一路走来获得今天的成就；当然，除了自己所钟爱的服饰设计外，Kanye 还以自己的音乐作品为时间线，将不同时期的心理状态向读者「解译」。感兴趣的朋友可前去《PAPER》官方网站在线阅读文章完整内容。

When I was 10 years old I lived in China, and at the time they used to come up to me and rub my face to see if the color would rub off. It was really fucked up, but I feel like it was preparing me for a world perspective that a lot of my friends who never got a chance to travel didn’t get. Now my perspective, a lot of times, is so much wider than someone who’s limited to the concept of any particular so-called world that’s not the real world. I take into account all of what’s happening, from the boom of business in San Francisco to the poverty in Africa — and that is wide perspective. When I was in fifth grade in China, when kids would come up to me and touch my face, it was like they had never seen a black person before, but that was a while ago. That was 20 years ago and of course we’ve come a long way now. That’s not the current state of mind. On “Never Let Me Down” I rapped, “Racism’s still alive, they just be concealing it,” but for the next generation that’s not necessarily true. Racism is something that’s taught, but for the new post-Internet, post-iPad kids that have been taught to swipe before they read, it’s just not going to affect them as much. They realize that we are one race. We’re different colors — my cousins and I are different shapes and we’re all from one family. We’re all from one family called the human race. It’s simple as that. This race is up against some interesting things — poverty, war, global warming, classism — and we have to come together to beat this. It’ll only be as a collective that we can beat this, and we can. We can create a better world for ourselves.