Madonna compares herself to Kanye West

Madonna has compared herself to Kanye West.

The singer, whose new album Rebel Heart features three collaborations with rapper, has said that “Kanye is the new Madonna”, claiming the pair bonded over the fact that both have faced criticism for pushing boundaries of acceptability in music.

“Kanye is the black Madonna,” she told the New York Daily News.

“We know, and recognise, that we have that in common. We’re comrades in the envelope-pushing genre.”

Madonna also spoke about the retrospective nature of Rebel Heart, saying that there is “a lot of reminiscing on this album”.

“I’ve been doing what I’ve been doing for over three decades, so in many ways I feel like a survivor,” she said.

“I see that many of my peers, and friends, and people I collaborated with are no longer with us.

“That gave me pause. I said, ‘Wow, I can’t believe I made it this far.’ That was a catalyst for me.”

The singer explained that she has come to miss the early stages of her career, when her life in New York was influenced by a variety of artists.

“There’s a looking back here, a missing the beginning of my career when I was surrounded by other artists,” she said. “Not musical artists, but artist-artists – like Keith Haring and Basquiat and Warhol.

“It was a time when pop music was more naive and free. I was missing that feeling and that mixture of so many different worlds in New York.”

She also revealed that Rebel Heart is about her “taking stock, taking ownership” of her past, as she “felt like it was time to speak of those things”.