14 DAY TRIAL // One of the highlights at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards, which took place the weekend before last, was when comedian Jay Pharoah did a skit in which he played Kanye West and ranted in typical Kanye West fashion about how he was the greatest artist of all time, and how he was so great he could even cure ALS if he so wanted.
The skit didn’t sit that well with reality star Kim Kardashian, Kanye’s wife, who was in attendance with her sisters Kendall and Kylie Jenner, as you can see in the video below. She smiled politely and pretended to be having fun, but she wasn’t exactly enjoying what she was seeing on stage.
Apparently, neither did Kanye, wherever he was at the time the awards gala aired on MTV.
The other night, the rapper performed on his Yeezus tour, and as per usual, he went on another one of his trademark rants, this time throwing Pharoah under the bus for making him into a joke. When he is clearly not that, obviously.
According to Us Weekly, Kanye even called up the comedian after the show to give him a piece of his mind, and at the same time, to educate him a bit about his background, so that he’s never again tempted to mock him in public.
If there’s one thing scarier than a Kanye West tantrum, that must be the size of Kanye West’s ego.
“They want to make a joke out of how hard we work. It’s fine and all funny and everything, but don’t distract from our vision. It’s not a joke what we do up here. This music that we do is not a joke. What we do culturally is not a joke,” the rapper ranted.
“I called Jay Pharoah right after the MTV awards. I said, ‘I appreciate your show, but let me tell you about my story. Let me tell you about what I went through to get to that position’… So we ain’t gonna have no black comedians going onstage spoofing the people that’s working hard, and helping the next man out,” Kanye continued.
He takes his relationship with Kim Kardashian just as seriously and will have no man or woman, especially a fellow African-American entertainer, mock it.
“For me to be in a very publicized interracial relationship is not a joke. It’s something that should be treated with respect ‘cause we’re all in this together,” Kanye said.
What he’s not getting is that no one is mocking his music or how culturally relevant it is. In fact, every time Kanye puts out new material, it’s praised for being exceptional and groundbreaking, if that’s what it really is.
The Jay Pharoah skit was precisely about this need Kanye feels at all times to remind people how great he is: not just in music, but as a designer, a celebrity, a father and husband, and an individual. Greatness can cease to be great if it keeps yelling it from the rooftops.