Photo courtesy of Rodrigo Ferrari, Wikimedia
Kanye West is known as a music icon, branded for his headline-making stunts and arrogant behavior.
The rapper often calls himself a “creative genius” and has made outlandish claims that his music can cure cancer. He has even gone as far as to say that he is more legendary than Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Shakespeare and even The Bible.
At the 2009 MTV VMA’s, West was considered one of the vainest people in the music industry when he rushed the stage during Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech for Best Female Video. He reasoned that Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time and should have rightfully won the award instead of Swift.
Prior to this, he had two other award show incidents, one in 2004 where he walked out of the American Music Awards after losing Best New Artist to Gretchen Wilson, followed by the time he crashed the stage at the 2006 MTV EMAs and went on an endless, profanity-filled rant after he was not given the award for Best Hip Hop Artist.
However it was not until the 2015 Grammy’s that aired on Feb. 8 that West took it a step too far. Rock artist Beck won Album of The Year for his work “Morning Phase,” beating out Beyoncé, leading West to interrupt Beck’s moment.
“It honestly doesn’t surprise me that he somehow found his way into the spotlight once again,” said Lisa Rino, a communications major at Ramapo. “It’s like his whole image is based off of him being a jerk. He performed twice that night, just let Beck receive his award and have his moment.”
It is likely that West does not consider what he did to be wrong. Not only should he have to publicly apologize to Beck, but he should also apologize to the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, who decides the nominees and winners of the awards.
Beck just won the most prestigious award of his career for an album that he worked hard on as an artist. He has probably dreamed of this moment, and Kanye decided to take the moment to project to the world that he did not deserve it.
At an afterparty with E!, Kanye had a chance to explain to the world how he really felt about Beck winning the award.
“I just know that the Grammys, if they want real artists to keep coming back, they need to stop playing with us. We ain't gonna play with them no more. And Beck needs to respect artistry and he should've given his award to Beyoncé,” said West. “Because when you keep on diminishing art and not respecting the craft and smacking people in their face after they deliver monumental feats of music, you're disrespectful to inspiration.”
As if ruining Beck’s award acceptance was not enough, West went on to disrespect Beck’s artistry as well.
Little to his knowledge, an artist is a person who engages in a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art. From a musical standpoint this would be someone who writes their own music, plays an instrument and can sing both live and recorded.
There was but one writer on Beck’s album and it was himself, whereas Beyoncé had 25 music writers on her latest album. She only sings, while Beck’s album features 14 instruments, all played by himself.
After receiving backlash through social media, West later told newspapers that his stunt at the show was a joke and that the voices in his head made him do it. There is a slight possibility that he finally discovered how rude he is and only wants to apologize for it, but that is highly unlikely.
mcalicch@ramapo.edu
