Colleen Taylor

I just leafed through the latest issue of Complex Magazine (I have no idea how we started getting it in the mail, but a few months ago we did) and the article about the making of Kanye West's new album made me super jealous of the author, Noah Callahan-Bever, for being invited to spend time in Kanye's Hawaii studio this past spring. Whether you like hip-hop or not, talk about an amazing-intense-bananas creative experience.

Two of my favorite bits:

1. The list of "Kanye Commandments" tacked to the wall in the recording studio:




2. Nicki Minaj's hilarious anecdote:

"I don't even remember him ever working with a female rapper, so to be on an album and on a record this monstrous? I couldn't have planned it better in a perfect world.

I remember a conversation I had with Kanye every time I sit down to write now. Every single time I sit down, I remember him asking, 'What is it that you wanna say? It's not about rhyming words, it's about what you really wanna say.' The fact that he wasn't even looking at me when he said it-- he was on the computer looking at naked girls, I think-- it was just a life-changing experience."