Kanye West - Tantrum Count

It looks like Kanye West is winning the record sales war against rival rapper Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson. But unfortunately, his artistic success is overshadowed slightly by the fact that he has so far proven to be a sour loser, throwing tantrums and working up a temper every time he did not manage to get an award for which he was nominated.

His latest such tantrum took place last Sunday at the MTV Video Music Awards, where despite having five nominalizations, he failed to win any trophies. He went into a long whining rant backstage, blaming MTV for discriminating black people (how come 50 Cent was on stage then? And Rihanna? And Beyonce? And Chris Brown?) and vowed never to return again.

Obviously, seeing how everybody has been going on about just how bad the VMA shows have been over the past years (this year the rating was up mainly due to Britney's unfortunate performance), not getting the award should not have been such a tragedy. On the contrary, seeing how some of the winners (Fergie, for instance) didn't even consider the ceremony important enough to attend it, Kanye should have taken a hint and realize it was, in fact, a Moonman he lost - not an Oscar or a Grammy.

In this context, MTV has put together a little list with some (not all, by any means) of Kanye's similar outbursts, just to be able to put the whole thing into perspective. Don't get me wrong - Kanye is a great artist and all, his sales are way up, not to mention the personal record of having scored one over rival 50 Cent, who, if he keeps to his word, will never record a solo album again. But he's a major league whiner - and here are some of his past and present strikes, as put together by MTV.

When: November 14, 2004
Where: The 32nd annual American Music Awards
Why: because he lost the Best New Artist award
What he did: he stormed out in of protest. He later declared "I felt like I was definitely robbed, and I refused to give any politically correct bullsh**ass comment ... I was the best new artist this year"

When: February 13, 2005
Where: The 47th annual Grammy Awards
What he did: he was afraid he was going to lose the "Best Rap Artist" award, so before the big night he went public accusing the Grammy people of persecuting him. When he did win the award, he displayed the full extent of his modesty and said : "A lot of people were wondering what I was going to do if I didn't win anything ... I guess we'll never know".

When: November 2, 2006
Where: The MTV Europe Music Awards
Why: his clip "Touch the Sky" lost to Justice and Simian's "We Are Your Friends"
What he did: he jumped on stage and claimed his video deserved to win because it "cost a million dollars and Pamela Anderson was in it". 'Nuf said.