“I never had the empathy for people who lacked confidence. I had so much of it that I didn’t know what it was like to be without it.” He added: “It was incredible because it was forced humility. Previously, I would’ve looked at humility as more of a negative thing.” But that humility, he said, “gave me time to grow.”

On opioids, medication and liposuction

“I was drugged out,” Mr. West said on TMZ, about the period preceding his hospitalization. “I was on opioids. Two days after I got off of opioids, I’m errrrrr — I’m in the hospital.” He said he had been prescribed the pills after undergoing a liposuction procedure. “I had plastic surgery because I was trying to look good for y’all,” he told the staff of the gossip outlet. “Didn’t want y’all to call me fat, so I got liposuction. And they gave me opioids.”

Mr. West said he went from taking two pills a day after the surgery to taking seven, but that he was no longer on as much medication. “These pills that they want me to take three of a day, I take one a week maybe, two a week. Y’all had me scared of myself, of my vision. So I took some pills so I wouldn’t go to the hospital and prove everyone right. We are drugged out! We are following other people’s opinions. We are controlled by the media. And today it all changes.”

On racism

Mr. West began a diatribe on race by citing new lyrics. “I got this rap that says: Parents are the strippers/strip they kids of their confidence/teach white dominance/question your common sense/I’ve been washed in tradition, now I’mma rinse/hopped off the Amistad and made ‘I’m a God.’”

He went on to explain that the conversation about putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill “was the moment that I wanted to use Bitcoin,” adding: “It’s like when you see all the slave movies. Why you gotta keep reminding us about slavery? Why don’t you show us — put Michael Jordan on a $20 bill.”

In reference to Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X, he added: “Man, I know this is going to cause an uproar, but certain icons are just too far in the past and not relatable and that’s what makes them safe.”