Kanye West knows what people think about My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy — a fan and critical favorite that many consider to be the best album in his discography — but as it turns out, he has a contrarian opinion about that too. In a new GQ profile of the mercurial, multihyphenate superstar — May’s cover story — Kanye reveals that he thinks “Power” was his worst lead single and questions why people thought Fantasy was so much better than its predecessor or what came next.
“All these people say Dark Fantasy was this album that was so good, and then people didn’t like 808s, they didn’t like Yeezus,” he explains. “Dark Fantasy, I just made it to that level because people were saying my career was going to be over. I always felt like “Power” was my weakest first single that I ever had, because I felt like it was bowing to the expectations.”
He also elaborated on what made “Power” so unremarkable in his mind. “Just like, ‘Here’s the ultimate Kanye West song!’” he says. “Versus ‘Love Lockdown?’ ‘Can’t Tell Me Nothing?’ ‘Diamonds?’ ‘Follow God?’ I always do the songs that people never heard before. But you had actually heard ‘Power’ before. You heard ‘Crack Music.’ You heard ‘Amazing.’ You heard that song before! It’s just a mix of things.”
Read the full profile here.