14 DAY TRIAL // Kanye West wants the world to know that Kanye West wasn’t disrespecting Beck at the Grammys 2015, when he won Album of the Year and Kanye West obviously thought that he should have given the award to Beyonce, because she deserved it more.
The rapper called in on Ryan Seacrest's On Air to discuss the much talked about interruption at the awards gala on Sunday night, but also the rant he delivered to E! News cameras about how Beck was “disrespecting artistry” and inspiration by not giving his Grammy to Beyonce.
Make yourself comfortable, this is about to get good.
Kanye West was just joking around
As you can see in the Vine below, when Prince presented Beck with the award, Kanye made a move towards him up on stage, as if he was about to grab the Grammy from his hands, stopped before that and motioned as if he’d had a change of heart.
Everyone in the audience and the people at home thought he was joking, that he was actually poking fun at himself for actually doing that at the 2009 Video Music Awards, when he told Taylor Swift she didn’t deserve the accolade for Video of the Year, but that Beyonce did.
Kanye tells Seacrest that this is exactly what happened (video below), but that the voices inside his head urged him to go up on stage, to show just how ridiculous he could be as a means to offer a measure of how ridiculous the Grammys were.
He meant no offense and he certainly didn’t want to hijack Beck’s big moment or disrespect him, he insists. Funnily enough, that’s exactly what he did. Whether Beck deserved to win more than Beyonce is an entirely different discussion, but the bottom line is that Kanye managed to ruin his big moment by being the rude, self-entitled and nasty man he always is when something doesn’t suit him.
A joke, but with some truth to it
So if Kanye didn’t mean to disrespect Beck, then why did he say he wasn’t a real artist after the interruption, when E! cameras caught up with him backstage? Well, because that’s what he believes, Kanye says, contradicting his earlier statements.
He might have meant the interruption as a joke, but that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t truth in his motivation for doing it: Kanye really believes Beyonce was robbed and that he was entitled to stand up for her, even though she probably preferred if he hadn’t.
“Well, you know what happened?” Kanye continues. “It’s because I sat there and I kind of let that [smolder] and I was asked my opinion and I was given a platform. And when given a platform, it’s very hard, as we know — and I’m going to talk in third person like I’m a crazy person — but it’s very hard for Kanye West to not be very true and vocal to what he feels.”
The Grammys are ridiculous but they’re not
In fact, this isn’t the only instance in which Kanye contradicts himself in the interview. The rapper also says that he has no right to act in such an unprofessional manner at public industry events, but then minutes later explains that he’s entitled to speak the truth because he’s an artist.
So he didn’t mean to say that Beck wasn’t a real artist, but this is exactly what he meant to say. The Grammys are a joke that no one takes seriously anymore, but they’re very important and mean a lot for the community of artists like himself and Beyonce (not Beck, though, we assume).
Who wins a Grammy has no relevance anymore because the gala is all about turning a profit and putting on a good show, but if Beyonce doesn’t win the award Kanye thinks she should, then all hell breaks loose.
It truly boggles the mind to try and make sense of Kanye’s arguments - or for that matter, to try and keep up with them.
