Kanye West praised Apple’s allegiance with Beats Electronics during a recent appearance at a seminar in Cannes, France, after saying he was “not a fan” of Samsung, which Jay Z inked a deal with last year. He explained his disinterest by saying that Samsung was not “Number One.” “There would have been no Beats deal without the Samsung deal,” he said, according to AdWeek. “It showed the Number One company the importance of connecting with culture. The reason I said I didn’t like Samsung particularly is because, throughout my entire life, because of how my parents raised me. I have to work with the Number One.
“I can’t work with anyone but Jay Z because he’s Number One,” he continued. “I can’t be with any girl but Kim [Kardashian] because that’s the girl whose pictures I look at the most and get turned on by. I’m not going to represent any company but Louis Vuitton because that’s Number One. … Samsung is not quite Apple, but it showed that Jimmy [Iovine] and Dre would be able to connect with the Number One influencers.”
West also weighed in on BlackBerry’s appointment of singer Alicia Keys last year as the company’s creative director, a post she left in January. “I think it is ridiculous giving any celebrity a creative director role of anything,” West said, according to Page Six. “There is only like three guys who I think could work like that, and that’s [producer-singer] Ryan Leslie, me and [artist] Will.I.Am because we care about it. We’re inside of it.”
And as for the Internet itself, the topic came up as an extension of talking about design … and bigger concepts. “The world as a whole is f—ing ugly,” he said. “The Internet as a whole is f—ing ugly, too. But I’m not in the construction business. I said to [Instagram co-founder] Kevin [Systrom], why don’t you let us redo Instagram? Now, you know, Instagram is nice. It’s nice-looking. I’m not knocking it. But just in general, everyone spends all of their time looking at their screens or their phones. And just as a simple task, we could clean that up.”
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