Hey Beck, Imma let you finish...
The rap gods were kind at the Grammys last night: Iggy Azalea did not win any awards, and Kanye West pulled off one of the biggest pranks in Grammys history. As Beck beat out Beyoncé for best album and was about to make his acceptance speech, 'Ye jumped onstage in a mock repeat of his 2009 interruption of Taylor Swift's MTV speech.
Check out Jay Z's look of absolute horror as he watches Kanye ascend the stage. That's not a look of amusement once he realises the joke; that's a look of abject relief.
Beck took Kanye's faux stage invasion in good humour, yelling "I could use your help" as 'Ye left the stage. Maybe Beck knew that he wasn't the frontrunner for the best record Grammy; after all, Bey's self-titled album did break records on its release and introduce the concept of "surfboardt" to the world. The Grammy award-winning album Morning Phase? Not so much.
At the E!’s after-Grammys show, Kanye explained the joke, kind of, by saying that Beck should have really given his award to Beyoncé.
"I don’t even know what (Beck) said. I just know that, the Grammys, if they want real artists to keep coming back, they need to stop playing with us. We aren’t going to play with them no more. 'Flawless.' Beyoncé’s video. And Beck needs to respect artistry, he should have given his award to Beyoncé. At this point, we tired of it. What happens is, when you keep on diminishing art, and not respecting the craft, and smacking people in the face after they deliver monumental feats of music, you’re disrespectful to inspiration."
"We, as musicians, have to inspire people who go to work every day, and they listen to that Beyoncé album, and they feel like it takes them to a different place. And then they do this promotional event, and they’ll run the music over somebody’s speech, the artist, because they want commercial advertising. We aren’t playing with them anymore. And by the way, I got my wife, my daughter, and I got my clothing line, so I’m not going to do nothing that would put my daughter at risk, but I am here to fight for creativity. That’s why I didn’t say anything tonight, but you all knew what it meant when ‘Ye stepped on that stage.”
OK, so as pop awards ceremonies go it's not quite on the level of Jarvis Cocker mooning Michael Jackson, but it's close.
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