Kanye West says Kobe Bryant was the 'basketball version' of him: 'And I was the rap version of him'
Kanye West has claimed that he is the rap version of Kobe Bryant while his good friend is the basketball version of him in a new tell-all interview about his relationship with the Los Angeles Lakers' icon.
Kobe, his teenage daughter Gianna, and seven others tragically died after their helicopter crashed into a mountainside in Calabasas, California, on January 26.
Kanye, who starred alongside the basketball star in numerous Nike commercials and was also present courtside for his last game as a Laker told GQ that he still regularly takes inspiration from his friend. "Everyone in our life is now a member of the Lakers on one of Kobe’s championship teams," he shared. "The way that Kobe would say that we all have to come together and win this championship is the way I look at life now. To an infinite, other level. This is a game-changer for me."
"He was the basketball version of me, and I was the rap version of him, and that’s facts!" he continued. "We got the commercials that prove it. No one else can say this. We came up at the same time, together."
As part of the interview, the rapper agreed to take photos on a basketball court and said it was a therapeutic experience because it reminded him of his connection with Kobe.
"One thing I thought was really amazing is that we were able to find a groove with the photographs today even as out of it as I was with the loss of Kobe," he said. "We were able to just go to the court and play ball."
He shared that he often drove on Las Virgenes Road, which is close to the site of the helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant, and that it pushed him on to strive for greatness.
"There’s one street that I drive to go from either my office or my home to the property where the domes were built," he said. "So now there’s no way for me not to be as determined as Kobe every time I drive down that street. It’s game time. There’s no move that we can’t make, or that we’ll wait to make."
Kanye also admitted he "might have had a reputation for screaming about things" but that he was no longer taking "any mess for an answer."
"We’re about to build a paradigm shift for humanity. We ain’t playing with ’em. We bringing home the trophies," he said.
The interview, which was done less than a month after Kobe's death, came just as Vanessa, the basketball star's widow, mourned his "senseless" death on the 4th anniversary of his NBA retirement.
She took to Instagram to share a video of Kobe from his last game and wrote, "My husband worked his ass off for 20 years. Gave it his all. All he wanted was to spend time with our girls and me to make up for lost time. He wanted to be there for every single milestone and special moment in our girls' lives."
"He only got to enjoy 3 years and 9 months of retirement. We had 2 more daughters, he won an Oscar, he opened Granity studios, he became a 5x best selling author and coached Gianna's basketball team in that time," she continued, before adding, "Life truly isn’t fair. This is just senseless."