Kanye Covers Complex…Inside Ye’s Nazi Rap Boot Camp, “No Tweeting, No Pictures, Just Shut the F*ck Up Sometimes”

Kanye West covers the December 2010/January 2011 issue of Complex Magazine, where he discusses the making of Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

Editor-in-Chief Noah Callahan-Bever visited Ye in Hawaii in what sounded like a Rap Nazi bootcamp environment. Check the full interview here, but peep a few excerpts….

On what Ye’s musical environment looked like while he was recording: The wall of Kanye Commandments posted on 8.5″x 11″ sheets of paper on one side of the studio. They include the obvious—”No Tweeting” and “No Pictures”—and some…well, some less obvious ones, too. Not that “No Hipster Hats” and “Just Shut the Fuck Up Sometimes” aren’t rules to live by.

On Ye’s sleep, or lack thereof: During my five days in Hawaii, Kanye never slept at his house, or even in a bed. He would nap in a studio chair or couch in 90-minute intervals, working through the night.

On what was discussed at the kitchen table amongst musicians (RZA, Q-tip, Consequence, Kid Cudi, Ye): With everyone assembled and enjoying their leisurely multi- course breakfast, music is the only thing discussed at the kitchen table—or anywhere else. Despite the heavyweights assembled, the egos rarely clash; talks are sprawling, enlightening, and productive. Topics range from the future (whether “Live Fast” should be gifted to Rick Ross, who ended up with the track) to the present (reactions to Drake’s single “Over”) to the past (RZA describing the exact frequency to which he would tune Ghostface’s voice in order to regulate its whininess). But mostly we talk about Kanye’s album: what it has to mean, and what it has to accomplish.

Nicki Minaj on her Hawaiin studio session with Ye: “I heard through Drake that Kanye wanted me on his album, and I got on the next thing smokin’ to Hawaii. I didn’t think that he was gonna like me. I always figured that he was one of those conscious rappers, so I thought that he wouldn’t want girls to be dressed overtly sexy—and I go to the studio and he has nothing but pictures of naked women on his computer that he’d invite me to look at. They were really artsy pictures, but you know he loves nudity, so it was a complete shock to me, ’cause I thought I had him all figured out, but I didn’t. He was watching porn when we were in the studio—no shame in his game. Kanye kept askin’ me to come and eat breakfast, but I like to record in the morning. So, when they were eating breakfast, I was in the studio listening to music and writing. And he would always be like, ‘Yo, why you ain’t never come over for breakfast, yo?’ But I never went. I would get to the studio at like 10:30 in the morning and he’d be leaving to go home and eat breakfast and I’d be getting to the studio to just write and record. I stayed late sometimes, but I was always getting sleepy. I get up at 6 in the morning, so midnight is late for me. One time he caught me nodding off, and I thought maybe he would kick me out. I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life. You know how you’re sitting up and you don’t realize that you’ve just fallen asleep, but it feels like an eternity? When I picked up my head from sleeping, he was looking at me in the strangest way I’ve ever been looked at by a human being. He pulled his shades down and he looked and said, ‘Oh, she’s sleeping?’ I wanted to crawl under a rock and die. [Laughs.]

Full story here.