The voices made him do it…
Kanye West was interviewed by Ryan Seacrest Wednesday morning, wherein, in addition to announcing he would be collaborating with Taylor Swift in the near future, he halfway apologized to alternative rock artist Beck for stealing his Grammy moment.
As Beck accepted the award for Album of the Year Sunday night, West momentarily joined him on stage, before returning to his seat.
Now Kanye says that he felt compelled to rush the stage by all the screaming voices. No, not at the show, the voices in his head:
…everybody was looking at me and then people started screaming, “Kanye! Kanye! Go do it!” Ok, that didn’t really happen, these were voices in my head. So the voices in my head told me go and then I just walked up like halfway up the stage.
After the Grammys, West interviewed with E! News, where he spoke of his disdain for the award selection.
“I just know that, the Grammys, if they want real artists to keep coming back, they need to stop playing with us,” West said. “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.”
West now tells Seacrest he feels Beck is “one of the nicest guys and one of the most respected musicians in the game,” and he meant no disrespect.
When explaining his post-award show rant, the rapper said:
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. 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.
…It’s not me always standing up for a black artist. I feel that racism is a distraction to humanity. We are one race. We are the human race, period.
…I feel that we have to base our new society, the future post-Internet society, off of blocks and bricks of truth. And if the Grammys are capitalizing off the amount of views that Beyoncé gets for them and still not laying that brick of truth and being respectful towards deserving artists — because Beck says afterwards, literally, says, “Hey I think Beyoncé should’ve won it.”
West has also announced he has buried the hatchet with country/pop star Taylor Swift. The pair posed for a photo together at the Grammys, and have now made plans to record together.
“Yeah, she wants to get in the studio and we’re definitely going to go in. 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 like how many Grammys or you know, the amount of ratings you get on an album,” he said.
To view West’s entire interview with Ryan Seacrest, click here.