(Cover) - EN Showbiz - Kanye West expects people to be stunned when they hear his new album as hes spent the last year improving every element of myself.

The rapper is due to release his fifth record, Dark Twisted Fantasy, later this year. He is fiercely proud of it, and thinks people will be surprised by how far he has moved on sonically when they hear it.

Last year, Kanye stormed the stage during Taylor Swifts Best Female Video acceptance speech at the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) claiming his friend Beyonc Knowles should have won. He apologised to Taylor, and then took time away from the limelight to reassess his life. Part of that was spent working on his music and the way he delivers lyrics, which he says will show in the new record.

I spent the last year improving every element of myself as a person. By default, my raps are way better now, because Im at a point where I dont have to come up with lines - I just think of what Im really doing and make it rhyme, he wrote in XXL magazine. January first of this year, I started back in the studio. I knew for a while I was going to start that day. I still had a lot of pain, and I needed to write that pain out, and its on my new album.

Kanye thinks taking time away from the music industry was the best decision he could have made. He left America and spent time in Europe, which he found hugely relaxing.

The star also used the time to indulge some of his other loves, such as fashion. I went to Japan for three weeks, then moved to Rome for the rest of the year. I worked as an intern at Fendi. On weekends, I would fly to Paris and sometimes take off four days just to be in Stockholm, Sweden, just to meet with Johnny who runs Acne, or the Fifth Avenue Shoe Repair, to find the perfect pair of jeans, he explained. (C) Cover Media