For about two minutes in front of millions of people, Kanye West paced back and forth, holding a trophy, in silence.
Before we talk about what he said Sunday night at the VMAs and the context of the evening, I’d like to start there. In the hours passed since Kanye accepted the Video Vanguard Award from MTV and Taylor Swift, major media outlets have spun the event with their desired outcome in mind.
Yes, that’s Fox News claiming Kanye West is an incoherent mess. Of course, that’s Fox News pitting Black celebrities (Kanye, Nicki Minaj) against White celebrities (Miley Cyrus, Justin Timberlake). The latter is particularly egregious, considering Kanye went out of his way to use Timberlake and his FutureSexLoveSound album as an example of artistic prowess, not to mention the social implications of pitting Blacks and Whites against each other… I’ll digress.
Kanye West is a consummate performer. (Need proof? Watch his concert at Glastonbury, in its entirety, for free, at kanyewest.com). Nobody was more aware of the moment Sunday night than he was. After all, the Video Music Awards mean more to him than most people, and as Kanye would later point out, MTV bent over backward to promote the Swift/West reunion happening on its stage that night.
Swift chose her words carefully during her introduction, and was reliably charming and funny. She joked about “how she met Kanye” at the 2009 VMAs, and said she’s been a lifelong fan of Kanye, buying The College Dropout on iTunes when she was 12. (Her most clever joke: Nothing pokes at the ego more than being reminded you’re propelling closer and closer to old age and death, right Ye?)
There was no way that Kanye was going to accept the award, thank a few folks, and walk off stage in a timely manner. If you’re truly mad at Kanye West about anything, first, get over yourself, and second, ask yourself whether or not you were listening to what he said in the first place. My guess is anybody going out of their way on Monday to trash Kanye at the water cooler, or on Twitter, or within the footnotes of their anti-Obama email chains, didn’t actually hear what Kanye said.
Chris Rock did a bit once that I’ve never forgotten: If you know the answer before you hear the question, you’re a fucking idiot.
With that, I’d like to talk about what Kanye West said, by pretending Kanye West was talking to me on Sunday. Hopefully we learn something from this. We probably won’t. (Transcript courtesy of Entertainment Weekly.)
Kanye West: Bro.
Joe Mags: What?
KW: Bro!
JM: Yeah, fam, what’s up?
KW: Listen to the kids.
JM: They’re all on Snapchat, so they aren’t saying much, thank God.
KW: First of all, thank you Taylor for being so gracious and giving me this award this evening. And I often think back to the first day I met you, also.
You know, I think about when I’m in the grocery store with my daughter and I have a really great conversation about fresh juice, and at the end, they say, “Oh you’re not that bad after all!” And like, I think about it sometimes, like, it crosses my mind a little bit, like when I go to a baseball game and 60,000 people boo me. Crosses my mind a little bit.
JM: Yeah, I mean, bro, I love your music and everything, but you were a real dick six years ago. I mean, she has feelings too. What were you thinking?
KW: If I had to do it all again, what would I have done? Would I have worn a leather shirt?
JM: For what it’s worth, I’m really enjoying your new phys ed teacher get-up. Is that beige?
KW: Would I have drank a half a bottle of Hennessy and gave the rest of it to the audience?
JM: Yeah, buddy, there’s no defense for public intoxication…
KW: Y’all know you drank that bottle too!
JM: (Looks away.) Yeah, I did.
KW: If I had a daughter at that time, would I have went onstage and grabbed the mic from someone else’s?
JM: Wow, Ye. That’s a very poignant, well-rounded perspective. Did you find that on BrainyQuote?
KW: You know, this arena, tomorrow, it’s going to be a completely different set-up, some concert or something like that. The stage will be gone. After that night, the stage is gone but the effect it had on people remain.
The problem was the contradiction — the contradiction is I do fight for artists, but in that fight, I somehow was disrespectful to artists. I didn’t know how to say the right thing, the perfect thing…
JM: I feel you. I always have this deep feeling, right in the pit of my stomach, every time I pay the extra $2 for guacamole at Chipotle, that I made a mistake. Like I made the wrong decision, because I shouldn’t be spending $10 on burritos when I’m buried in thousands of dollars of student loan debts. Is that what you mean?
KW: I just sat at the Grammys and saw Justin Timberlake and Cee-Lo (Green) lose. Gnarls Barkley and the (FutureSexLoveSound) album. Justin, I ain’t trying to put you on blast, but I saw that man in tears, bro. And I was thinking like he deserved to win Album of the Year! And this small box that we are as the entertainers of the evening, how could you explain that?
JM: (Tries to hold back laughter) Justin Timberlake is a crier?!! HA!
KW: Sometimes I feel like, all this, they run about beef and all that, sometimes I feel like I died for the artist’s opinion — for artists to be able to have an opinion after they’re successful. I’m not no politician, bro!
JM: You know what would be really, really fun? If a bunch of celebrities started announcing they were running for president all at once? I’d be far more likely to pay attention to political programs on cable network news, according to an anonymous survey, if famous people received the bulk of the coverage.
KW: And look at that. You know how many times MTV ran that footage again because it got more ratings? You know how many times they announced Taylor was giving me the award because it gave them more ratings? Listen to the kids, bro!
JM: Yep, still Snapchatting.
TORONTO, ON – JULY 26: Kanye West preforms during the closing ceremony on Day 16 of the Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games on July 26, 2015 in Toronto, Canada. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
KW: I still don’t understand awards shows! I don’t understand how they get five people who work their entire life — sold records, sold concert tickets — to come stand on the carpet and for the first time in their life be judged on the chopping block and have the opportunity to be considered a loser. I don’t understand it, bro!
I’ve been conflicted, bro. I just want people to like me! But fuck it, bro! I will die for the art. For what I believe in. And the art ain’t always going to be polite.
JM: I mean, I guess Yeezus was a bit too minimal for me. Sorry? If it makes you feel better, I downloaded it as soon as it was available… on YouTube.
KW: Y’all might be thinking right now, “I wonder, did he smoke something before he came out here?” The answer is yes, I rolled up a little something. I knocked the edge off.
JM: Same.
KW: I don’t know what’s going to happen tonight. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, bro. But all I can say to my artists, my fellow artists, just worry about how you feel at the time. Just worry about how you feel and don’t never… you know what I’m saying.
JM: You lost me. Can you slow down?
KW: We the Millennials, bro. This is a new mentality. We not gonna control our kids with brands. We’re not going to teach low self esteem and hate to our kids.
We’re going to teach our kids that they can be someone.
We’re going to teach our kids that they can stand up for themselves.
We’re going to teach our kids to believe in themselves.
If my grandfather were here right now, he would not let me back down. I don’t know what I’m gonna lose after this, I don’t care though, because it’s not about me. It’s about ideas, new ideas, people with ideas, people who believe in truth.
JM: Wait, wait. I think I got it. The kids, the youth of the nation, the future. It’s our societal obligation to invest in our children — to provide a safe, creative environment for them to learn about themselves and the world. By enabling children to cultivate their own ideas and take ownership of themselves as intellectual beings, we’re empowering society and letting future generations build their own world.
And, by extension, treating celebrities like caged animals at the zoo is supporting a corrupted, capitalist media landscape that uses other people’s lives as click bait and ratings boosters. As a country, if we supported our artists — both with our wallets and by not succumbing to tabloid propaganda — we’d have more fulfilling music, film and television and innovation. By respecting our artists, we’re creating a better society.
Wow. This conversation has been eye-opening, Kanye. Maybe you’re not an egomaniacal prick after all!
KW: And yes. As you probably could’ve guessed by this moment, I have decided, in 2020, to run for president.
JM: You’re joking, right?
(Kanye walks off stage.)
JM: Well, what’s the worst thing that could happen?
