Kanye West and Rihanna Sit Down For A Very Strange Interview

Kanye West interviewed Rihanna in the latest issue of Interview Magazine, and the results were, perhaps surprisingly, quite odd. West and Rihanna have collaborated on tracks many times and are ostensibly friends, yet their chat still managed to be remarkably uncomfortable.

The interview begins with West discussing his own musical projects (of course), before he takes a somewhat flippant tone with Rihanna (re: fashion, "So all the trends with the shoulder pads and that shit is over for you?"). Things take an especially weird turn when -- after a discussion of the pink tank she used on stage during her recent tour (a prop West calls "a great piece of commercial pop art") -- he asks her about her extreme hotness in extremely weird terms.

West: How does it feel to know that you could have any man in the world. Or woman. How does it feel to know that you can turn straight women gay?
Rihanna: Is that a real question?
West: Yeah.
Rihanna: Well... Thank you. I don't know how to feel about that. I guess that's flattering.
West: But just to have that level of power. How do deal with it? No one woman should have that much power.

Rihanna manages to shake that comment off with an awkwardly serious retort ("I try not to depend on it..."), but the interview's next weird moment is handled less deftly. After Rihanna responds to West's question of how she got signed at the age of 16, West asks her a question we're guessing she's never been asked before.

Rihanna: I mean, I was 16. From Barbados. Like, you would never... the chances of ever meeting somebody famous or ever being signed - that was just a deadly combination. Like, I had to meet Jay-Z and audition for him at the same time.
Kanye: Do you know any famous people now?
Rihanna: Huh?

It would be kind of awesome if West just conducted all celebrity interviews from here on out, no?