Quentin Tarantino Reveals Kanye West Pitched ‘Funny’ Slave Video Idea
Quentin Tarantino isn’t letting Kanye take the credit for giving him and Jamie Foxx the idea for Django Unchained. While promoting his new book, Cinema Speculation, the director appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live and the topic of Kanye’s claims was brought up by the host.
Kimmel said, “He said that when he was making the ‘Gold Digger‘ video with Jamie Foxx, he pitched it to you guys as a video, and you made [Django]. Is there any truth to that?”
The director replied, “Okay, well there’s not ‘truth’ to the idea that Kanye West came up with the idea of Django and then he told it to me and I go, ‘Hey! Wow! That’s a really great idea! Let me take Kanye’s idea and make Django Unchained out of it.’ That didn’t happen.”
“I had the idea for Django for a while before I ever met Kanye,” Tarantino continued. “He wanted to do a giant movie version of College Dropout, the way he did the album. So he wanted to get big directors to do different tracks from the album and then release it as this giant movie — not videos, there’s nothing as crass as videos — they were movies based on each of the different tracks.” The Pulp Fiction director added that he would meet with Kanye and they’d have “a really good time, and he did have an idea for a video and I do think it was for the ‘Gold Digger video,’ that he would be a slave. And the whole thing was the slave narrative where he’s a slave and he’s singing ‘Gold Digger’ and it was very funny! It was a really, really funny idea.”
As Kimmel dryly questioned, “It was funny slave video?” Tarantino responded, “Yeah, yeah, It was meant to be ironic. And it’s like a huge musical, I mean, like no expenses spared with him in this slave rag outfit, doing everything. And then that was also part of the pushback on it. But I wish he had done it. It sounded really cool. Anyway, that’s what he’s referring to.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Tarantino was asked to list his small list of “perfect movies” based off of his individual aesthetic. One of them was Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He lists Jaws, The Exorcist, Annie Hall, Young Frankenstein and Back To The Future.
Watch Tarantino on Jimmy Kimmel Live below:
