By now we’ve all seen Kanye West scream at the top of his lungs about how he’s the next Steve Jobs or Walt Disney, but his mid-show speech in Brisbane, Australia last night was… different. Amidst controversy surrounding a recent wheelchair incident (recap: he asked every member of the audience to stand up, and after confusion surrounding two handicapped fans he didn’t realize were unable to stand, the show continued), Mr. West hit back at the media for unnecessarily sensationalizing the story and intentionally slandering his character.
The interlude almost felt like a casual conversation between Kanye and the crowd as he vented his frustration with reading biased reports about himself, at one point pleading, “take a step back for a second and look at this: I’m a married Christian man with a family.” However, perhaps Ye’s most powerful statement came when he asked the audience, “How many people here ever heard one of my songs on their way to work or they heard it and it made them feel better?” And as “Spaceships” instantly enters our minds, we’re reminded that Kanye, the kid from Chicago who made music to help us get through our shitty day, is still in there somewhere behind that diamond-encrusted mask.
Watch below…
Read the full transcript of Kanye’s speech below (via Complex):
Hey Mike, stop the piano, turn the auto tune off, turn your camera phones off. what I want you to do is just run the video that everyone’s talking about where I so called scream at somebody and everything. I want you to run that right since this is such big media press news and obvious shit where you try to demonize people. It’s like, “Welcome to today’s news ladies and gentlemen, we got Americans getting killed on TV, kids getting killed every weekend in Chicago, we have unarmed people being killed by police officers, and we have Kanye West buying ice creamand also that squirrel can jet ski.”
You know it makes you just WANT TO reflect on the things that are a little more sensationalized than others. I want to take this platform. If I didn’t have this last concert maybe I would have tweeted or something. Maybe I would have put a statement with a publicist, but I can talk directly to you, my fans, because they got this thing where they want the masses, the people who have never even heard one of my albums to somehow read a headline that reads negative and to think I’m a bad person or something. But the thing is, I’m not judging anybody, but I’m going to tell you who I am: I’m a married Christian man.
If you take someone that can go from being a rock star across the globe, pick one woman, raise a family which anyone that is here that is married or is in a relationship knows that there is enough things working against you. What I’m saying is, you’ve got like 12 years that we’ve put in positive music. How many people here ever heard one of my songs on their way to work or they heard it and it made them feel better? And in these songs that made them feel better, don’t I say offensive shit here and there? Oh so wait a second, that’s like my brand. I curse and I say like really offensivewait a secondthat’s why when I did “Runaway” earlier I said, “I sent this bitch a picture of my dick” what did ya’ll think when you heard that? It’s not G rated. It’s rap fucking music. It’s real music. it’s real expression. This is real artistry.
An artist’s career doesn’t happen in the cycle of one week of news an artist’s career happens in a lifetime and if you’re a true artist you’re willing to die for what you believe in, and I don’t know if you feel like this, but do you get this feeling after the 10, 11, 12 yearsdoes it seem in anyway that I might just be a true artist? I heard it’s going to the Today show, I’m not sure if I keep up with the news but if Michael Strahan is still at GMA, if it goes to The View, Whoopi Goldberg, Barbara Walters, I don’t know wherever y’all send. If y’all run thislook at me for a secondand take a step back for a second and look at this: I’m a married Christian man with a family. At my concerts I make sure everybody has good of a time as possible, so all this demonizing me, it ain’t going to work after awhile. Pick a new target, pick a new target cause I’m not one of these dumb ass artists that you’re used to. You come at me and I’m gonna take my platform and break this shit down for real intelligent people every night so they can understand, then we get back to the music.
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