Kanye West is many things. A rapper. Producer. An expert at uncomfortable interviews with Jimmy Kimmel. Now he can add to his resume of crazy that he is a person who stops a concert to make sure the people who are not standing for one of his songs, because they have a condition that physically does not allow them to stand, are truly unable to stand. (Warning, he uses some adult language).
That story was truly weird, and I got an awkward chuckle out of it. Mistakes happen, even to someone like Kanye who feels when he makes mistakes, it’s other people’s fault.
And that began his next incident. On Monday, he gave a pretty bizarre speech in regard to his weird mistake. Once again, this was not Kanye’s mistake according to Kanye, but everyone’s favorite punching bag, the media.
“What I want you to do is I want you to run the video everyone’s talkin’ about where I so-called screamed at somebody and everything,” Kanye told his audience in what I like to imagine was in a hushed tone, but probably was not. “I want you to run that, right, since this is such big media-press-news and everything that obviously they trying to demonize me for. It’s like, ‘Welcome to today’s news, ladies and gentlemen.’ We’ve got Americans getting killed on TV, kids getting killed every weekend in Chicago, unarmed people getting killed by police officers…”
To which I would agree, if I was reading about him questioning someone in a wheelchair about their ability to stand, and sending a bodyguard to make sure, on normal news outlets. But I was reading about it on Pitchfork, AV Club and HuffPost Entertainment, which last time I checked, were media outlets focusing on entertainment and not, you know, hard news.
Even his wife/reality TV “celebrity” Kim Kardashian weighed in, oblivious to why people were poking fun at her husband.
“What an amazing Australian tour! Its frustrating that something so awesome could be clouded by lies in the media. Kanye never asked anyone in a wheel chair to stand up & the audience videos show that. He asked for everyone to stand up & dance UNLESS they were in a wheel chair.” Kardashian wrote, unbeknownst that the issue was the concert was stopped to make sure the alleged disabled people were, in fact, unable to stand and how incredibly weird that is.
Also, I find it pretty obnoxious that any performer would hold a show hostage in an attempt to force people to stand during one of their songs. I stand at shows when I feel like it. I paid my money, so it should be my choice whether I should stand.
Either way, this marks another incredible chapter in Kanye West keeping it awkward.
The JOE-DOWN 