"It also speaks to a deeper sense that, as life has gotten ever more luxuriously comfortable for him, he has become that much more restive and incapable of truly enjoying it. He fancies himself a king these days, but throughout his career he has frequently come across like a princess tossing and turning atop a pea. It’s as though an irritating little voice nags at him from down below, telling him that he still hasn’t achieved everything he can, that he still doesn’t have all the success he deserves, and that he never will. Sometimes he says he doesn’t want to be “limited by the art form of rap,” and sometimes he sets his sights higher and says he doesn’t want to be limited by the 21st century: “When I think of competition it’s like I try to create against the past. I think about Michelangelo and Picasso, you know, the pyramids,” he says."