Kanye West: “I took the Confederate flag and made it my flag”

Kanye West stirred up some controversy when he opened up his pop-up store next to fiance Kim Kardashian’s store, DASH, and it featured imagery incorporating the Confederate flag. His tour merchandise does the same.

In addition, the rapper was recently spotted out wearing a bomber jacket that had a Confederate flag patch on the sleeve.  Folks have been up in arms over the use of the often inflammatory symbol, but the Yeezus star isn’t backing down from his critics.

In an interview with radio station 97.1 AMP, West was defiant in defense of his stance on the use of the flag:

“React how you want. Any energy you got is good energy. You know the confederate flag represented slavery in a way – that’s my abstract take on what I know about it. So I made the song “New Slaves.” So I took the Confederate flag and made it my flag. It’s my flag now. Now what are you going to do?”

Kanye then put on his fashion designer hat and discussed that aspect of the decision:

“I just think people look cool in it. They look nice. And it’s colorless also. It’s super hood and super white boy approved at the same time. That’s really what my style has always been.”

West then tried to further clarify his self-proclaimed genius comments and how that relates to the flag fashion:

“I have this platform now at age 36 to really put out a lot of creative ideas. Certain people who are not giving me a shot or not backing me or not doing this… I can meet with all the billionaires in the world and people kind of just look at me like it’s not me, like I haven’t created what I created.

I had to apologize to all the guys in the world for my engagement because I turned up so much on it, but when you go on Jimmy Kimmel and say, ‘Hey, I’m a creative genius,’ I don’t think people really understood what I was talking about. So let me make it so y’all can understand what I’m talking about when I say creative genius, because that’s my title.”

Photo: Fern / Splash News