In his candid cover story, Ye speaks on the reaction he received from the infamous 2009 MTV Video Music Awards debacle. “I stress that the incident wasn’t about Taylor personally,” he explains in the story. “And it definitely wasn’t about race. Where I messed up is, at the end of the day, it’s your show, Taylor. It’s your show, MTV.”

“The relationship with the public and with your fans is like the relationship with your girlfriend,” he adds. “How could I not, at a certain point, be like, ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been at the awards show. I’m sorry.’ Not that I don’t deserve to get beat up or change who I am inside, to make sure that that doesn’t happen again.”

Mr. West said that, following his VMA outburst, he immediately dedicated himself to the studio. “I knew I wasn’t in a great spot publicly after the incident, but I would just block it out and work as hard as possible and let my work be my saving grace,” he shared. “In a way, I had thrown a Molotov cocktail at my own career, and it gave me an opportunity, for the first time, to go away and find out who I was. Because I felt very alone.”