We are, it seems, in the throes of Yeezy Season.
His hotly anticipated Yeezy 3 sneakers, a Kanye West x Adidas collaboration, are scheduled to debut at New York Fashion Week, and the self-described “Steve Jobs” of this generation sure as heck made his presence known during Sunday night’s Grammys. After performing two songs, including the country-tinged ballad “FourFiveSeconds” with the disparate duo of Rihanna and Paul McCartney, and making amends with onetime nemesis Taylor Swift, whose stage he crashed at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, Kanye was about FourFiveSeconds from wildin’ when singer/songwriter Beck was awarded the Grammy for Album of the Year for his album Morning Phase.
You see, Kanye and his wife Kim Kardashian are pals with Jay Z and Queen Bey, and as such, Kanye takes it as a major affront when Beyoncé is passed over for awards (see: Swift). As soon as Beck was announced, Kanye stormed towards the stage—and a befuddled Beck—before flashing a smile, spinning around, and heading back to his seat. Jay Z’s reaction is priceless.
But after the show, Kanye let his true feelings be known, venting to E! about the apparent injustice:
“I don’t even know what [Beck] said. I just know that, the Grammys, if they want real artists to keep coming back, they need to stop playing with us. 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. At this point, we tired of it. 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.” (There’s more, which you can read here.)
On Monday evening, Beck’s pal, Garbage singer Shirley Manson, came to his defense. In a fiery Facebook post, she wrote that Kanye is the one “busy disrespecting artistry” by making himself look “small and petty and spoilt.”Here’s the full post:
Looks like we have a '90s vs. '00s showdown on our hands. The mild-mannered Beck, for his part, didn’t seem to have much of a problem with what Kanye did or said. When Us Weekly caught up with the 44-year-old musician post-Grammys, he even came to Kanye's defense.
“I was just so excited he was coming up. He deserves to be on stage as much as anybody,” Beck said when asked about the stage incident. “How many great records has he put out in the last five years right?”
Even though he said Beyoncé should have won? “Absolutely,” said Beck. “I thought she was going to win. Come on she's Beyoncé!”
He added, “You can't please everybody, man. I still love him and think he's genius. I aspire to do what he does.”