In a recent interview Kanye West compared himself to Solomon Northrop the lead character in 12 Years a Slave...
Kanye tells Brett Easton Ellis,
"In the past when I’ve dealt with attempting to create in other fields, or attempting to create in clothing. I’ve kind of been on this campaign that started with, ironically, my song, ‘New Slaves.’ Where I was sitting in Paris and dealing with all of these companies that I had promoted, and I saw my friends promote it. And the reason, literally, why they would sell on Barneys’ floors is because me and Jay Z and everyone wore it. It’d be something that maybe I kind of discovered four years before then me and Don C started putting it on-trend."
"Then you start doing more research and say, ‘Hey, I want to be a part of the creative conversation and be able to make money off of that also.’ They stop you right there and say, ‘You can’t be a part of that conversation,’ or they’ll give you a one-off. At Louis Vuitton I did one shoe. At Nike I did two shoes but they spread them apart over four years and they had the most impact possible. I kind of saw that side of what it was, as a creative, to be free, the parallel to the main character in Twelve Years a Slave. When it was taken away from me, it felt like what it felt like as a creative to be enslaved.”
