Kanye shuts down VMAs with bizarre speech

THEY told Kanye he could do whatever he wanted — and he did, stopping the VMAs for almost seven minutes to call out Taylor Swift, ex Amber Rose and others.

WE were warned.

Before the MTV VMAs kicked off, reports came through that Kanye West would be given four minutes of stage time to do whatever he damn well pleased. Further reports that he’d skipped the dress rehearsal deepened the mystery: what did the notoriously eccentric rapper have planned?

In the end, Kanye spoke for almost seven minutes in a rambling, at times incoherent monologue that touched on politics, current affairs — and his famous feuds.

He walked out to the strains of his song Famous — specifically, the contentious line about having sex with Taylor Swift that reignited their long-running feud.

“I am Kanye West, and that feels really great to say — especially this year,” he said, pausing frequently to milk the crowd for applause.

“I came here to present my new video, but before I do that — Imma talk.”

Self-described ‘thought leader’ Kanye West. Picture: MTV

Here we go.

“Later tonight, Famous might lose to Beyonce, but I can’t be mad — I’m always pushing for Beyonce to win,” he joked, a reference to his 2009 stage invasion while Taylor Swift was accepting an award to insist that Beyonce was the true winner.

And here’s when things started to get a bit ... muddled.

“For people to understand just how blessed we are, it was an expression of our now,” he said, ‘it’ being the Famous video, which sees lifelike wax models of a dozen or so famous people in bed together.

“Our fame, RIGHT NOW. Us on the inside of the TV. I had Anna Wintour next to Donald Trump! I put Ray J in it, bro! This is fame, bro!”

Gesturing out into the audience, he pointed to ex-girlfriend Amber Rose.

“I see you, Amber. My wife is a G, not a lot of people’s wives let em say that,” as the camera cut to a smirking Kim Kardashian West.

“We came over in the same boat, now we all in the same bed. Well, maybe different boats, but ...” he said, his sentences scattered.

“If you think about it, last week there were 22 people murdered in Chicago,” he started, before turning his attention to frenemy Taylor Swift, who was not present at the event.

“People come at me like, ‘Yeah, you took down Taylor’ … I love all y’all. That’s why I CALLED HER. An artist told me ‘Three of my friends died, I don’t know if I’m gonna be the next’. If you feel like you’re seein’ people dying, you could feel like life’s worthless.

“I know for me, sometimes I sit down and talk to older people. Rich people. Aka, white. They tell me: ‘Don’t compare yourself to Steve Jobs, don’t compare yourself to Walt Disney’,” he continued.

West explained why he does speak of himself in the same breath as his heroes — he wants to be a role model for the impoverished.

“There’s three keys to keeping people impoverished. That’s taking away their esteem, taking away their resources and taking away their role models. My role models are artists, merchants. There’s less than 10 that I can name in history: Truman. Ford. Hughes. Disney. Jobs. WEST,” he announced, to huge cheers.

“Bro. BROOOOOOO! Tonight, we here to have fun. I’m standing in front of my idol, Puff Daddy. I’m standing in front of my wife, Kim Kardashian West. We are undeniably the thought leaders.”

Like all Kanye speeches, it was a stream-of-consciousness mess, heavy on the braggadocio but with flashes of insight.

Kanye's speech at the #VMAs sounded like pulling an all nighter on an essay before it's due in the morning

— Common Gay Boy (@CGBPosts) August 29, 2016

kanye west hyping himself is me at 3am in the group chat telling everyone why my joke that didn't land was actually really clever #VMAs

— Ben J. Pierce (@BenJPierce) August 29, 2016

I just went on vacation and came back and Kanye was still on his second sentence 🙋🏼 #VMAs

— King Wolfie (@wolfieraps) August 29, 2016

Kanye is his own role model #VMAs

— Vanessa Friedman (@VVFriedman) August 29, 2016

Everyone watching Kanye West talk at the #VMAs be like pic.twitter.com/h80d9uIqAt

— Not Will Ferrell (@itsWillyFerrell) August 29, 2016

“I’m gonna play y’all a piece of my art, and I hope y’all have a good time.”

What was the ‘piece of art’ that earned this extended introduction? The video clip for West’s song Fade, which sees actress and singer Teyana Taylor dancing in a barely-there bikini in what plays out like a softcore homage to Flashdance.

By the video’s end, Taylor is shown writhing naked in a shower with a male lover, before a frankly bizarre closing shot showing her as an oiled-up human/cat hybrid:

We’re awkward sheep eyeing the camera.

Hosts Key and Peele summed up the reaction to the entire affair when the cameras cut back to them:

Key & Peele's reaction to that Kanye video is all of us. #VMAs pic.twitter.com/etTrBfqpWl

— Marlow Stern (@MarlowNYC) August 29, 2016

MTV VMAs 2016 Red carpet

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