What seemed like a playful nod to his infamous 2009 MTV Video Music Awards run-in turned into a serious rant on the E! Network’s 57th Annual Grammy Awards post-show.
Upon learning that Beck’s “Morning Phase” — not Beyonce’s self-titled debut — won the Grammy for Album of the Year, West charged the stage in a callback to his reaction to Taylor Swift’s upset Best Female Video victory in 2009.
Unlike that incident, this year’s run-up did not include a microphone grab. West simply laughed the situation off and allowed Beck to continue his acceptance speech.
But when the artist appeared on the E! post-Grammys broadcast, he was no longer laughing.
In a pointed speech, West not only accused the Album of the Year outcome of being diminishing to art but said that “Beck needs to respect artistry, and he should have given his award to Beyoncé.”
“We tired of it,” declared West. “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.”
Now a father, West noted that would not have done anything at the Grammy Awards ceremony that would have put his daughter at risk.
“But you all knew what it meant when ‘Ye stepped on that stage.”
West also complained about how the commercial nature of the Grammys presentation meant putting a time window on the night’s acceptance speeches.
“They’ll run the music over somebody’s speech, the artist, because they want commercial advertising,” commented West.
Interestingly, Beck was one of the artists who received the dreaded musical alert about exceeding his time allotment.