He heard ’em say! Kanye West was just giving the people what they wanted when he interrupted Beck at the Grammys on Sunday, Feb. 8 — and by people, he means the ones in his imagination. During a chat with Ryan Seacrest on Wednesday, Feb. 11, the “Only One” singer, 37, joked that “the voices in [his] head” told him to go onstage after Beck beat out Beyonce for Album of the Year.
“You know, I felt like just the whole Grammys, right when that happened, everybody was looking at me, and then people started screaming, ‘Kanye! Kanye! Go do it!’ Okay, that didn’t really happen, these were voices in my head,” he quipped on Seacrest’s KIIS FM radio show. “So the voices in my head told me to go up, and then I just walked up, like, halfway up the stage.”
He went on to say that while he was serious about his comments after the show — when he dissed the Grammys for being “disrespectful to inspiration” — he really had no intention of ruining the “Blue Moon” singer’s big moment.
“You know, what I really wanted to do is just joke around with what had happened before [with Taylor Swift at the 2009 VMAs], but I just really didn’t want to take away from Beck’s moment or the time he’s having to talk, because, you know, the Grammys, they play music really quick no matter who you are and everything,” he added. “So I didn’t want anything to take away from his screen time. So I just walked back down because, you know, it was kind of a joke, like the Grammys themselves.”
Seacrest noted that a lot of people felt the move was disrespectful, and asked what West would say to Beck if he had the chance. “Well, first of all, Beck is one of the nicest guys and one of the most respected musicians in the game. So there’s nothing that I would want to do as a fellow musician to disrespect him in any way,” the rapper replied.
“The weird thing is — and I don’t feel like I have the right to take away from people’s moments, but the reality of it is — it’s almost like a chiropractor,” he continued. “You know, you just get a little crook out, like, ‘Wow, this crook has been there!’ It’s just a little jolt of truth, right? And then, you know, everyone feels better after the fact, or everyone sells way more albums after the fact, and then Kanye just goes on being an a–hole to everyone.”
As for his post-show comments to E! that Beck should “respect artistry” and give his award to Queen Bey? “Well, you know what happened? 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,” he told Seacrest. “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.”
Drawing a comparison between the Grammys and the Super Bowl, he said, “You know, someone’s got to be mad that Marshawn [Lynch] didn’t get the ball.”
He admitted, however, that his comment about Beck needing to “respect artistry” may not have been the best way to get his point across. “I think it came off the wrong way, and that was a mis-wording on my part, because obviously Beck is one of the most respected artists and respects artistry,” he explained.
“But I felt — and this is my opinion and he’s his own man and he’s not wrong and we’ll still go play basketball and stuff [unless] he doesn’t want to do it — that even though the Grammys sometimes give awards to people who you wouldn’t think should win in the category, as a respect to artists, we mention the other artist’s name in our speech,” he continued.
West noted, too, that Swift — whom he famously interrupted at the MTV Video Music Awards — came up to him after he returned to his seat and told him he should’ve gone onstage. “This is the irony of my life!” he quipped.
Indeed, Swift appears to hold no grudges against the hip hop star for his 2009 stunt. West says she even wants to collaborate with him. “She wants to get in the studio, and we’re definitely going to go in,” he told Seacrest. “Any artist with an amazing point of view, perspective, fan base — I’m down to get in the studio and work. I don’t discriminate. I don’t have an elitism of music because of how many Grammys or, you know, the amount of ratings you get on an album.”
