Kanye West's recent performance on Saturday Night Live turned out to be the perfect way to induce maximum excitement around his new album, which was released on TIDAL a couple of hours later. In the minutes leading up to the performance, though, all was not so promising. Yesterday (Feb. 16), it was revealed that Kanye had experienced something of a meltdown during the live episode and that Lorne Michaels, the creator of SNL, had to calm him down in order to convince him not to abandon his performance.
Today, those rumors have been confirmed, as the same source, PageSix, that broke the story has now released audio of Kanye's backstage meltdown. What prompted Kanye's temper to unfold seems to be a miscommunication with regard to the stage design.
Though the SNL's stage team started him off, he went on to namedrop Taylor Swift during his outburst, calling the singer, whom he referenced on The Life of Pablo track "Famous," a "fake ass."
"Look at that shit, they took my fuckin' stage offa SNL," he began. "Without asking me. Now I'm bummed. That and Taylor Swift, fake ass."
On the day after he played The Life of Pablo at MSG, Kanye responded to backlash regarding his rather offensive namedrop of Swift by explaining that he had cleared the idea with the 1989 singer beforehand, insisting it wasn't a diss -- rather, a joke that all parties were in on. A representative for Swift soon denied Taylor had approved of any of the lyrics on "Famous," which is perhaps why Kanye called her "fake" amid his SNL tantrum.
Upon accepting her Album of the Year award at the Grammys on Monday night, Swift seemed to address Kanye directly, implying that she was absolutely not OK with him taking credit for her fame.
It's not exactly clear if the rest of Kanye's backstage rant is one stream of consciousness or a few compiled audio clips. In any case, he gets increasingly heated, at one point repeating "don't fuck with me!" three times in a row, and he ventures on to compare himself to the three Pauls who may have had something to do with the naming of The Life of Pablo: Paul the Apostle, Picasso, and Escobar.
"Bro, by 50 percent, Stanley Kubrick, Apostle Paul, Picasso, fucking Picasso, and Escobar. By 50 percent more influential than any other human being...By 50 percent, dead or alive. By 50 percent for the next thousand years. Stanley Kubrick, 'Ye."