Kanye West has likened being famous to being "catapulted into space" without a suit.
The hip-hop star has struggled with the public interest in his life repeatedly over the last year.
He and his fiancée Kim Kardashian welcomed their daughter North into the world last June and since then Kanye has been accused of assaulting a photographer and an 18-year-old man who spewed racial profanity at Kim.
The rapper explained it is his family which helps him cope with the limelight.
"Well, I've got my astronaut family. You know, becoming famous is like being catapulted into space - sometimes without a space suit. We've seen so many people combust, suffocate, get lost in all these different things. But to have an anchor of other astronauts and to make a little space family..." he told Interview magazine. "I mean, it's not like I'm the guy in The Hunger Games begging for people to like me. I'm almost the guy with the least amount of 'likes'. I wanted a family. So god gives you opportunities, and you make sacrifices for something that's greater."
The 36-year-old star spoke about the way fatherhood has affected him, admitting he is still getting used to being someone's dad. At the moment he doesn't feel able to "give an opinion" of parenting as it seems so new to him.
Kanye and Kim sparked controversy with their raunchy video for his track Bound 2, which saw Kim topless and clutching her beau as they bounced along on a motorbike. The rapper has laughed off criticism of the promo, insisting most people just didn't understand it.
"I think the controversy comes from the fact that I don't think most people are comfortable with their own dreams, so it's hard for them to be comfortable with other people's dreams. I mean, look, it took some time for us to be comfortable with a walking, talking mouse, but that became an icon. So this stuff, what I'm doing now, is the beginning of me throwing out what it means to be a rapper -you know, with the gold chain," he said.
The hip-hop star is known for being outspoken and famously walked on stage to complain when Taylor Swift won the best female video gong at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. He was upset it hadn't gone to Beyoncé Knowles and has since apologised for his behaviour.
"It's funny that you would say 'mentally, physically, spiritually' because my answer before you even said that was going to be 'god, sex, and alcohol'," he replied, when quizzed on how he dealt with the fallout.
"I don't have an addictive personality, so that means that I can lean on what might be someone else's vice just enough to make it through to the next day."
Kanye released his latest record Yeezus last year and attempted to explain the creative process behind it. Many will be surprised to hear how he goes about penning his tracks.
"I just close my eyes and act like I'm a three-year-old," he laughed. "I try to get as close to a childlike level as possible because we were all artists back then. So you just close your eyes and think back to when you were as young as you can remember and had the least barriers to your creativity.
"Well, I'm a trained fine artist. I went to art school from the time I was five years old. I was, like, a prodigy out of Chicago. I'd been in national competitions from the age of 14. I got three scholarships to art schools... So the joke that I've actually played on everyone is that the entire time, I've actually just been a fine artist. I just make sonic paintings, and these sonic paintings have led me to become whatever people think of when you say 'Kanye West'."
