Kanye West Calls His Comment About Jewish People an "Ignorant Compliment"

Kanye West recently got himself into a bit of hot water with the Anti-Defamation League after a comment he made nearly a month ago about the Jewish community being more wealthy and more powerful than the African American community. He’s now claiming that the comment was misunderstood, and that it was really supposed to be a compliment.

Yesterday (December 18), Kanye sat down with Chicago’s B96 (a Radio.com station) to talk about the comment in question, in which he remarked, “People want to say Obama can’t make these moves or he’s not executing. That’s because he ain’t got those connections. Black people don’t have the same level of connections as Jewish people.”

It’s a comment Kanye says he now wishes he could take back.

“I think that it was kind of like an ignorant compliment,” Kanye explained, before joking, “I don’t know how being told that you have money is like an an insult. That would be like if somebody complimented black guys and said, ‘All black guys  have big penises.’ You don’t want to be the black guy who raises his hand and says like, ‘That’s not true. I have proof!’”

Kanye also spoke about being villainized in the press for comments he has made over the last few months, including comparing himself to a policeman or a soldier.

“What I’m saying is I make a contribution to society and it should be respected as such,” Kanye said, explaining that, to him, calling someone a soldier is the highest compliment.

As for what Kanye has in store musically, he says he’d like to collaborate more. “I might want to sit down and do an album with The Weeknd, James Blake and Frank Ocean,” he explained. ”Or I  might want to sit and do another album, just me and Jay Z. Or I might want to do another Cruel Summer or something with Pusha T, Big Sean and, you know, 2 Chainz.”

But for right now he’s going to focus on fashion.

In the interview, Kanye said that he had just gotten back from Germany where he was going over designs for his upcoming Adidas line. Kanye says the line, which will not only include shoes, but women’s and men’s athletic wear, will hit stores in September. He also said that Adidas is going to give him “stand-alone stores,” but did not go into detail of what that means.

“Before they said I wasn’t a fashion designer,” Kanye explained. “Let’s see what happens in the next five or ten years.”