Kanye West has spoken about his life and work in a wide-ranging new interview and says his career hasn't been the same since he interrupted Taylor Swift at the MTV VMAs nearly 10 years ago.

In an almost two-hour interview with US radio DJ Charlamagne tha God, West says he believes his music career was negatively impacted by the incident at the 2009 VMAS in which he stormed the stage while Swift was making her acceptance speech for best female video, saying that Beyonce deserved the prize.

Kanye West interruped Taylor Swift's acceptance speech during 2009 MTV VMAs

The rapper says that following the incident, the "powers that be" have stopped his music getting as much radio airplay at his older work.

He said: "Really, ever since the Taylor Swift moment, it had never been the same, the connection with radio. It's like, whatever powers that be, it was much harder after that."

Charlamagne tha God asked the 40-year-old rapper and designer about his "breakdown" in 2016 in which he was hospitalised. 

West said he is in a much better place mentally now, explaining: "I think I'm in a stronger place than I ever was. After the breakdown, or I like to say, the breakthrough."

On what he thinks caused it, West said: "Fear, stress, control, being controlled, manipulation, like being a pawn in a chess piece of life, stressing things that create, like, validation, that I didn't need to worry about as much."

The Life of Pablo star also spoke about how the robbery of his wife Kim Kardashian West in Paris in 2016, during which she was held at gunpoint, affected him.

He said: "There's like, the situation with my wife in Paris, and all of the elements, you're feeling helpless, like, what can you do?

"I went to Paris on that trip to protect her. Not protect her physically, but to go and help her with her looks because she's in Paris, so I'm like, let me put my eye on it personally... and one of the things that she said she heard is that, they were coming to rob her and they had to wait until I had left."

Kanye West says robbery of wife Kim Kardashian left him feeling "helpless"

West recently returned to Twitter after a long absence, and he told Charlamagne that he returned because he "felt the need to speak at this point".

"When you look up at five years from now, or 10 years from now, I'll have even more experience. I'll be in an even better place than I was today," he added.

"But there'll be mistakes, there'll be flaws in the way I communicate, we're human beings. I'm not media trained, I'm not studied in that. I'm not trying to say the right thing. I'm just trying to say exactly what I feel out of love."

Watch the full interview below.

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