A Proud Supporter of Operation Humble Kanye

The latest update in the Kanye saga that never ends...

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Operation Humble Kanye

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

Colbert has launched "Operation Humble Kanye": a mission to topple the arrogant borderline-retarded "sunglasses display mannequin."

Should've been in theater

MORE KANYE!!!! Woohoo!...

"I am sick of negative people who just sit around trying 2 plot my downfall... Why???? I understand if people don't like me because I like me or if people think tight clothes look gay or people say I run my mouth to much, But this Bonnaroo thing is the worst insult I've ever had in my life. This is the most offended I've ever been... this is the maddest I ever will be. I'm typing so fucking hard I might break my fucking Mac book Air!!!!!!!! Call me any name you want.... arrogant, conceited, narcissistic, racist, metro, fag whatever you can think of.... BUT NEVER SAY I DIDN'T GIVE MY ALL! NEVER SAY I DIDN'T GIVE MY ALL! THIS SHOWS NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRY TO BE GOOD AT SOMETHING THERE WILL BE PEOPLE THERE TO LIE ABOUT YOU AND BRING YOU DOWN! LIKE WAYNE SAYS PLEASE DON'T SHOOT ME DOWN CAUSE I'M FLYING! I'M FUCKING HURT BY THIS ONE. ALL I CARE ABOUT ARE THE FANS. JUST SAY THIS OUT LOUD IN A ROOM FULL OF PEOPLE, "KANYE DOESN'T CARE ABOUT GIVING A GOOD PERFORMANCE." CAN ANYONE HONESTLY SAY THAT ????????? HAS ANYONE EVEN TAKEN THE TIME TO AT LEAST DO THE MATH??? BONNAROO SHOULD HAVE RELEASED A STATEMENT IN MY DEFENSE BUT SINCE THEY HAVEN'T LET'S BREAK DOWN THE WALLS ON THIS TRUMAN SHOW AND LET YOU KNOW WHAT REALLY OCCURRED!!! FOR OVER A MONTH WE WENT BACK AND FORTH ON WETHER OR NOT WE COULD EVEN FIT MY STAGE AT THE FESTIVAL. ONE DAY THEY WOULD SAY YES... WE'D SEND THEM OUR SPECS THEN THEY THEY'D SAY OK... THEN THEY WOULD SEND SPECS BACK THAT DIDN'T FIT THE STAGE. WE WERE OBVIOUSLY DEALING WITH FUCKING IDIOTS WHO DIDN'T REALLY HAVE THE CAPACITY TO REALLY PUT ON THIS SHOW PROPERLY. THEY TRIED 2 GIVE ME A TIME SLOT WERE IT WAS STILL LIGHT OUTSIDE ... I HAVE A FUCKING LIGHT SHOW DUMB ASS, IT'S NOT CALLED GLOW IN THE DARK FOR NO REASON SQUID BRAINS! MY PEOPLE WORKED OUT A COMPROMISED STAGE PLOT AND A 3AM TIME SLOT AND I AGREED. FAST FOWARD TO THE DAY OF THE SHOW. MY PRODUCTION MANAGER TRIED TO LOAD IN FOR 24 HOURS BEFORE I WENT ON STAGE BUT THE FESTIVAL WOULDN'T ALLOW US TO DO ANYTHING UNTILL PEARL JAM LEFT THE STAGE. PEARL JAM ENDED ONE HOUR LATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AT THAT POINT WE'RE RACING AGAINST THE SUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AT 4:20AM DON COMES BACK 2 THE BUS AND TELLS ME, " IT WOULD TAKE 45 MORE MINUTES TO PUT ALL YOUR PYRO IN!" I SAY I HAVE TO GET OUT THERE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE . I HIT THE STAGE AND PEOPLE HAD BEEN THROWING SHIT ON THE STAGE AND HAD ACTUALLY HIT THE JANE SCREEN WITH, I GUESS BOTTLES OR SOMETHING AND HAD BROKEN MY FUCKING SCREEN. REMEMBER WHEN YOU WERE A SHORTY AND WATER WOULD HIT THE TV?????? WHEN I GOT 2 "THROUGH THE WIRE" I STEPPED ON THE FRONT PART OF MY STAGE AND THERE WAS SO MUCH LIQUID ON THE STAGE I COULDN'T MOVE WITHOUT SLIPPING. I HAD TO ADJUST MY WHOLE PERFORMANCE STYLE BECAUSE OF IT. A FEW MORE SONGS IN AND THE SONG WAS ON IT'S WAY UP.. I CUT A FEW SONGS FROM THE SET BECAUSE I WANTED PEOPLE 2 EXPERIENCE STRONGER WHILE THERE WAS STILL SOME DARKNESS TO PERFORM IT IN. I'VE STRUGGLED WITH STRONGER FROM IT'S CONCEPTION. REMEMBER LAST SUMMER WHEN I CANCELED SOME TV APPEARANCES. IT WAS BECAUSE I DIDN'T WANT TO PERFORM STRONGER IN THE DAYTIME. ANYONE WHO CAME TO THE GLOW TOUR CAN UNDERSTAND WHY I WANTED PEOPLE TO SEE IT PROPERLY. IT BROKE MY HEART THAT I COULDN'T GIVE THESE FANS STRONGER IN IT'S GREATEST FORM... BY THE TIME I GOT TO STRONGER IT WAS DAYTIME AND IT BROKE MY HEART. I'M SORRY TO EVERYONE THAT I DIDN'T HAVE THE ABILITY 2 GIVE THE PERFORMANCE I WANTED TO. I'M SORRY... SOMETIMES I GO 2, 3 DAYS W/O SLEEP WORKING ON MY PERFORMANCE... I HAVE TO ICE MY KNEES AFTER EVERY SHOW AND THEY HURT WHEN I WALK THROUGH THE AIRPORT... HAVING AN EXPENSIVE STAGE CUTS MY PAYDAY IN HALF... CALL ME WHAT YOU WANT BUT NEVER SAY I DIDN'T GIVE MY ALL!!!" - Kanye West


"CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR AWESOME!!!!"
- unknown

Update: Kanye Alert

Kanye is a common source of entertainment at his expense for me on this blog and he never disappoints (just search the tag, 'Kanye' on this blog and you'll see why).

Here's his latest narcissistic antics at our Tennessee's own Bonnaroo:

Kanye West Doesn't Care About 'Roo People
[animal-ny]

Photo: |Dru5000|

An increasingly fan hating Kanye West made a huge miscalculation this past weekend at the Bonnaroo musical festival in Tennessee, thinking that grungy concertgoers would rather see him glow in the dark than just perform his damn songs. After numerous jumbotron displayed delays, crusty crowds began chanting "Kanye sucks" and throwing trash onto the stage. Scheduled to perform at 2:45AM, 'Ye didn't make it to the stage till at least two hours later due to problems with setting up his elaborate gimmicky stage set, "which included an interplanetary landscape of a wavy black platform with a slanted floor in the middle and a video screen above." When he finally appeared, an unapologetic Kanye didn't even acknowledge or address his lateness which further incensed the crowd, some of whom used spray paint to express themselves, tagging the walls with anti-Kanye messages. We compiled some of the indignant graffiti below, plus a bonus photo of a hippie chick using both body and makeshift sign to display her disdain for the rapper.

Photos: |Diverting Bailey|

Photo: |Pixie Jane1980|

Photo: |KP!|

Winehouse Beautifully Humanizes Grammy's

Amy, Kanye refresh music's roots

The Grammys provide some random moments for all ages.

By Ann Powers, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 11, 2008
Link to story

FROM the long march of dead and living forebears, to the Aretha-led gospel invocation, to Tom Hanks shouting about the Beatles as if they were running for president -- and on up to the surprise winner for best album, Herbie Hancock's beatification of the Joni Mitchell songbook -- this year's Grammy Awards ceremony Sunday night at Staples Center was all about casting around for belief. Uncertainty permeated this night of nights for major-label pop, as its makers sought a way forward in what can only be described as a fog.

In the end, two beacons stood out, demanding a choice: Should music lovers get behind the earnest showbiz convictions of its young alpha queen, Alicia Keys, who now completely owns the pop glamour role once held by Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey? Or dare they invest in the tattered dramatic realism of Amy Winehouse, whose poignant midrehab performance followed in the unpredictable tradition of rock 'n' roll?

Kanye West offered a third path, highlighting his genre-defiant collaboration with the French electronic duo Daft Punk in a live performance that was typically stylish and surreal. But he didn't own this night, even though he won four Grammys and gave one great speech, managing to shush the get-offstage music to pay proper tribute to his recently deceased mother. West's confidence is almost singular among today's major artists; he knows where he's going, no matter what happens around him. Others are less certain about whether to passionately pursue showbiz or to invest in something riskier and more raw.

The show's producers put their trust in both women. Keys opened the evening, sitting at the piano and dueting awkwardly with a hologram of Frank Sinatra (one would have hoped Celine Dion's weird dance with the shadow Elvis during last season's "Idol Gives Back" gala would have killed off this idea) and later delivering her massive hit "No One" with the bellowing fervor her many fans so admire.

Her real gift, however, is for craft and polish, for selling feeling in a package so graceful and well-measured that it utterly convinces. She represents the best outcome for pop as defined by "American Idol," country music and theatrical reworkings such as the soundtrack winner, Cirque du Soleil's Beatles tribute "Love." With her biracial mix of hip-hop and rock influences, she's a model for the mainstream in a globally minded America.

Winehouse is obviously an iffier proposition. Beamed in by satellite from a London soundstage decorated speak-easy style, she pushed her way through two songs from "Back to Black," the album that won her five statues (her creative partner Mark Ronson also won for producer of the year). Off-key at times, her drawled syllables sometimes veering uncomfortably close to blackface, she nonetheless was the most exciting performer of the evening. Her desperation to do well was palpably human, and her delivery was a gamble -- a harder push, and a more electric one, than you usually see during a staged event like the Grammys. Cheering like a punk rocker when she won record of the year, Winehouse stood for all the rough-and-ready strivers who made popular music a rebel's sport -- and who still make it interesting in the margins, where the Grammys mostly only go off-camera.

She had companions this evening -- in fellow best-new-artist nominee Feist, whose handcrafted chamber pop also provided warmth amid the evening's glitz; in Grammy pioneer Keely Smith, who showed her wacky humor despite being saddled with collaborators Kid Rock and Dave Koz; and in Tina Turner, whose rasp is for the ages, and who, at 68, dared to wear skin-tight silver lamé.

The academy, however, is mostly on Keys' side. From Carrie Underwood classily mimicking Nancy Sinatra to Beyoncé slicking up Tina's style while onstage with her, the night's superstars threw in their lot with pop's razzle-dazzle masquerade. Even those old punks the Foo Fighters continued their upmarket trick of playing with a mini-orchestra.

But the classic soul that Winehouse reinterprets points toward another way -- an investment in the immediacy and daring that turned pop into a movement during the era she mines.No matter what the numbers are, music always burns brightest when telling stories and capturing feelings we urgently need to share.

For all her over-discussed troubles, Winehouse is a force for that connectedness, and she deserved to be celebrated Sunday night. "Camden town is burning, burning down, burning down!" she shouted upon winning, referring to a real fire that ravaged her native London over the weekend. But she might have been talking about the fire she's delivered, one that we can only hope will spread.

At this point, it must be staged...

New addition to my Kanye Collection:

http://matthewryanward.blogspot.com/2006/02/back-by-popular-demand.html


Kanye West, left, complains alongside winners Justice and Simian at the MTV Europe Music Awards at The Bella Centre, Copenhagen, Denmark, Thursday Nov. 2, 2006. West apparently was so disappointed at not winning for Best Video that he crashed the stage Thursday in Copenhagen when the award was being presented to Justice and Simian for "We Are Your Friends." In a tirade riddled with expletives, West said he should have won the prize for his video "Touch The Sky," because it "cost a million dollars, Pamela Anderson was in it. I was jumping across canyons."

Back By Popular Demand

EGO TRIPPIN'

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."

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"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."

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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