Here's a little segment I like to call...Kanye West On:
Kanye on Humility and Accolades
"After I finished with 'Jesus Walks' two weeks later I walk around with it and you can't tell me it's not hot. f#@$ you and your stupid ass ratings. Anybody who gives my album less than a perfect score is lowering the integrity of their own magazine. So either be a part of history or become it."
"I’m rappin’ now. Anybody who ain’t respecting me as an artist right now, might as well just bash their heads into the wall just for being stupid. I say, just kill yourself ‘cuz if not, it’s gonna kill you for how much you about to hear me."
"I do not apologize to Dick Clark or the AMAs because you should not have had me perform and have me nominated for so many awards but not have an award," he said. "I'm one of those guys that's like all new artists, `Oh, I just believe that everything is on the up-and-up' and now I see with some of those other awards shows that it's not."
"I feel I was definitely robbed, I was the best new artist this year, so get that other bullshit out of here (referring to Gretchen Wilson). I don't know if I'll be back at this award show next year."
"I still think I am the greatest." - Accepting the Billboard Music Award for Artist of the Year.
"I Make black history every day, I don't need a month." - Brand New , 2005
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SANTA MONICA, California — So what if the Grammy nominations haven't been announced? Kanye West is enraged anyway.
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1517545/20051206/index.jhtml?headlines=true
"College Dropout Kanye Tells High School Students Not To Follow In His Footsteps"), the rapper spouted to MTV News backstage about predictions he'd heard that his Late Registration LP would be a likely contender for Album of the Year — but wouldn't win because of West's tendency to run his mouth (particularly his comment that "George Bush doesn't care about black people").
"If I don't win Album of the Year, I'm gonna really have a problem with that," said West. "I can never talk myself out of [winning], you know why? Because I put in the work. I don't care if I jumped up and down right now on the couch like Tom Cruise. I don't care what I do, I don't care how much I stunt — you can never take away from the amount of work I put into it. So I don't wanna hear all of that politically correct stuff. You put the camera in front of me, I'm gonna tell you like this. I worked hard to get here. I put my love, I put my heart, I put my money [into Late Registration]. I'm $600,000 in the hole right now on that album and you tell me about being politically incorrect?
"People love these songs," he continued. "You talk to somebody whose grandmother just died and listens to 'Roses,' and you tell me about being politically incorrect. I'm talking about history. I never got five mics [top rating] in The Source, I never got five stars from Vibe. They said it's not a classic. So 'Jesus Walks' is not a classic? 'Roses' is not a classic? 'Gold Digger' wasn't song of the year? 'Oh, but Kanye, you can't say that.' Why? Who are you? I don't know you."
West mocked artists who "love everybody except themselves," calling it "cliché media training." He also made it clear he's not planning to shut up anytime soon.
"I said I was the face of the Grammys last year. I'm 10 times that [this year]," West said. "Get your cameras ready. Two things: Do not let me get up on that stage and do not let me get up on that stage. Either way, we going crazy!"
The Grammy nominees will be announced on Thursday, and the ceremony is scheduled for February 8 in Los Angeles.
Last fall, West attacked the American Music Awards backstage at the event after losing Best New Artist to Gretchen Wilson. That tantrum made West a focus at the Grammys in February, where he was the leading nominee (with 10) and won three awards, including Best Rap Album for The College Dropout and Best Rap Song for "Jesus Walks" (see "Kanye Steals The Show, But Ray Dominates Grammy Winners' Circle"). In Sunday's Los Angeles Times, critic Robert Hilburn wrote that the Recording Academy, which organizes the Grammys and is considered by some to be late in recognizing new artists, could reclaim credibility this year by giving West the Album of the Year. There was no mention of West's rants.
Also on Monday, West revealed the next single from Late Registration will be "Touch the Sky," which in some ways is a response to his critics.
"'Touch the Sky' is what my life is about, it's what this year's been about," he said. "To anyone that feels like something is so far away, [the song is] just the concept of actually being able to leap above the environment that you're in. All the naysayers and the haters and people say, 'You'll never make it that far, you'll never make it out of this town, we'll call you,' and all those things, and finally you get the opportunity to touch the sky. That's what this year's about, so no matter what they give to me or try to take from me, there's nothing you can take from me. We've already touched the sky.
"With or without any accolades, whatever it is, the fact that people listen to this music and it's connected with people, the fact that you see fans crying in the audience — you can't tell me anything after that because there's so many places and establishments where people are out of touch," he continued. "When someone hears your song and cries, then you're in touch and that's what matters. At that point, you feel like you've touched the sky." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"No disrespect, but I feel that I should win. The hardest part is that me and Mariah are up there together because our votes could cancel each other out," he said. "I need to use the Jedi mind trick, you know, when you're eating a sandwich and someone says, 'Yo, I'm hungry,' and you say, 'Well, I would give you the other half, but then I would still be hungry, so why not just let me eat?' So Mariah, let me get some and we can celebrate together.
"There's people that think I don't have respect for the Grammys, but in fact I have total respect for them," he added. "In fact I used the Grammys as the muse for my album. [Producer] Jon Brion and I were in the studio saying, 'We're making the Album of the Year!' "
"I've been here two years in a row, and if I don't win it's fixin' to be a problem."
"In America, they want you to accomplish these great feats, to pull off these David Copperfield-type stunts," he says. "You want me to be great, but you don't ever want me to say I'm great?"
West also says his hit song "Gold Digger" was the best song last year and that it should have been nominated for the Grammy's best rap song category: "That's a gimme Grammy."
http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Music/01/24/people.kanyewest.ap/index.html
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/9183008/kanye_west_world/?rnd=
1139615290900&has-player=true&version=6.0.12.1040
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Kayne on AIDS
"I would rather take that chance because it's important for my people. The concept of AIDS alone - my parents always told me, who are activists - that it's a man-made disease in the first place that 'tha man' placed in Africa just like crack was placed in the black community to break up the Black Panther party."
"So if there's anything that I can do to somehow continue that fight for equality, injustice, for a better way for my people, being that I am an African-American, then I got to do what I can do." - Kanye at Live8
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Kanye on Katrina Relief
After admitting that he went shopping before donating, but that "my business manager is looking into how much he can give."
Kanye followed with: "I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says, 'They're looting.' You see a white family, it says, 'They're looking for food.' And, you know, it's been five days waiting for federal help because most of the people are black."
While allowing that, "the Red Cross is doing everything they can," West _ who delivered an emotional outburst at the American Music Awards after he was snubbed for an award _ declared that government authorities are intentionally dragging their feet on aid to the Gulf Coast. Without getting specific, he added, "They've given them (the National Guard) permission to go down and shoot us."
After he stated, "George Bush doesn't care about black people"
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Kanye on other humanitarian crises
"Good Morning, this ain't Vietnam, still
People lose hands, legs, arms, fo' real
Little was known on Sierra Leone
And how it connect to the diamonds we own
When I speak of diamonds in this song
I ain't talkin 'bout the ones that be glowin
I'm talkin 'bout Roc-a-Fella, my home
My chain, this ain't conflict diamonds
Is they Jacob? Don't lie to me, man
[...]
People askin me is I'm gon' give my chain back
That'll be the same day I give the game back"
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Kanye on Christianity
We rappers is role models, we rap we don't think
I ain't here to argue about his facial features
Or here to convert atheists into believers
I'm just trying to say the way school need teachers
The way Kathy Lee needed Regis that's the way I need Jesus
- excerpt from "Jesus Walks"
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'I SHOULD BE IN THE BIBLE'
Cocky rap star, Kanye West, is calling for a revised edition of THE BIBLE, because he thinks he should be a character in it.
The JESUS WALKS hitmaker, who picked up three Grammy Awards last night (08FEB06), feels sure he'd be "a griot" (West African storyteller) in a modern Bible.
He says, "I bring up historical subjects in a way that makes kids want to learn about them. I'm an inspirational speaker.
"I changed the sound of music more than one time... For all those reasons, I'd be a part of the Bible. I'm definitely in the history books already."
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Just for fun (Miscellaneous Kanye Quotes): "That's one of the best things that can happen to a rapper - to almost die. TUPAC, 50 CENT and now me." - KANYE WEST remembers how a near-fatal car crash helped launch his career.
"Please don't download, because I want to get a pool in my second home."-------------------------------------------------
bonus feature:
Kanye's Momma on Kanye
"I am a fan of 50 Cent, Ludacris, Eminem. I even like Chingy. But I really haven't been as impressed by their lyrics as I am by Kanye's. I mean, Kanye has a way of putting a unique twist to things. [On 'Through the Wire'] he doesn't say, 'Thank God I ain't too cool for the safety belt.' He says, 'Thank God I ain't too cool for the safe belt.' I just think it's so brilliant."
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In conclusion:
"Kanye West courts controversy by dressing up as Jesus. Who does he think he is....
...Bono? - Stephen Colbert
Labels: Humor, Kanye, lyrics, Music