When Kanye West appears on stage, anything can happen. Whether it be robbing the mic from a teenage girl in order to praise Beyonce's greatness, ferociously screaming for almost a minute straight during a performance of "Touch the Sky" (concluding with his abrupt exit and mic drop), and even announcing a forthcoming run for the White House, we think we've seen it all. But we haven't, as he continues to surprise almost every time he's given the stage.
The aforementioned controversial moments come side-by-side with moments of unparalleled grandeur and inspiration. Though he's been guilty of cutting his shows short and storming off stage, it's his intent to give fans his absolute all during his time in front of them. Frankly, if he stopped doing live shows for the rest of his life, he'd still be one of the most important performance artists of this generation. Here are 5 of the most stirring renditions he's given throughout his career. One of the 5 moments transpired just last weekend, and it's my belief that the stages will only continue to get bigger, and his message more powerful.
"Famous" at the 2016 Paradise International Music Festival
This past weekend at the Paradise International Music Festival in Manila, Kanye West performed a few songs off his latest album, The Life of Pablo, including "Famous," the lead single, for the first time ever. After the crowd sang along with Rihanna's intro (which is a cover of Nina Simone), Kanye rapped the now-infamous opening lines: "For all my Southside n*ggas that know me best / I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why?" Crowd: "YOU MADE THAT BITCH FAMOUS!!!"
I MADE THAT BITCH FAMOUS #ParadiseIMF pic.twitter.com/ekbjE8UvJm
Toward the end of the song, Kanye began to cool down and get introspective. After singing the final lyrics -- "I just wanted you to know," a sample of the actual Nina Simone -- Kanye continued speaking. "What I wanted you to know the whole time," he told the awestruck audience, "in the spirit of Nina Simone, in the spirit of real artists: This is the song that broke the writer's block for me."
He went on to reveal that his notorious run-in with Taylor Swift at the 2009 VMAs had haunted him for years, until he was finally able to come to terms with his attempt to speak the truth when no one else would -- to say "what everybody else was thinking" -- with the recording of "Famous."
He emotionally thanked the Filipino crowd for its overwhelming response to the live debut of "Famous," before politely asking if he could perform the track one more time. Their answer was obvious.
"All Day" at the 2015 BRIT Awards
In March of last year, Kanye West's "All Day" made its debut with a stunning live performance at the BRIT Awards, to which Kanye returned after a nine-year hiatus. From Yeezus until "All Day," Kanye had only dropped two singles, "Only One" and "FourFiveSeconds." His "All Day" performance at the BRIT Awards, for which he was joined by a massive crowd of black men all dressed in black, signaled that, once again, he was fired all the way up -- literally -- as a few grime emcees stood behind him and passed around a flamethrower, which they sprayed up into the air while the rest of the group mobbed about the stage following Yeezy's lead.
A couple of the track's collaborators, including Allan Kingdom and Theophilus London, joined Kanye on stage, as did Skepta, Stormzy, and Novelist -- three of the biggest stars in UK grime, a genre that has been controversially been all but ignored by the BRIT Awards. "I felt like the BRITs performance captured the energy of the record," said Kanye after the show. That's an understatement.
"Runaway" at the 2010 VMAs
Not only is "Runaway" one of Kanye West's most emotional songs, and that's saying a lot, it's also arguably the one he's invested the most time and money into in an effort to give it a surrounding visual aesthetic. "Runaway" was the title of a 35-minute short film released a month before My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The song "Runaway" took up almost 10 minutes of the film and that segment was eventually made into the track's official music video.
Before the release of the short film or MBDTF, Kanye premiered "Runaway" live at the 2010 VMAs, with a performance that mirrors the "Runaway" short film in many ways. He begins positioned in the center of a circular stage that lights up with various illusory effects. The song starts as Kanye childishly taps the opening piano notes on his MPC, which itself is situated on a short Roman pillar. Three ballerinas enter the stage and quickly run around him in a perfect orbit, trailing linen sheets behind them.
Kanye soon begins to show off his live mixing and looping skills, before stepping away from the MPC to deliver an inspiring "toast to the douchebags." Later on in the rendition, his GOOD Music labelmate Pusha T shows up to perform one of the best feature verses of his career.
Kanye West VMA 2010 from mondebene.com on Vimeo.
"Stronger" & "Hey Mama" at the 2008 Grammys
"Hey Mama," Kanye's famous tribute to his mother Donda West, for whom he named his creative agency, appeared on his 2005 album Late Registration but was apparently written years before that. The song was tearfully touching upon its release, but it took on a more powerful, and painful, meaning after his mother's untimely death in 2007.
Kanye had attempted to perform the song a week after Donda's death at a concert in Paris, but he broke down in tears after he had barely begun. Afterwards, he rescinded the spotlight in order to grieve the death of the woman who raised him, eventually making his on-stage return at the 2008 Grammy Awards.
Kanye's Grammy performance began with a rendition of "Stronger" that also ranks among his most riveting. For "Stronger," he was joined by the robots of Daft Punk, whom Ye sampled on the song, and they controlled the backing track from the cockpit of a neon spaceship while Ye raged on stage donning an electrified pair of shutter shades. As Daft Punk quickly disappeared off-stage at the end of the song, what happened next was totally unexpected, as Kanye switched gears and carried out "Hey Mama" in its entirety.
The "Hey Mama" version Ye performed at the Grammys included a brand new hook, which found him repeating, "Last night I saw you in my dreams / Now I can't wait to go to sleep." There's a beautiful, faint whimper that persists in his voice throughout the performance. Tears slowly well up in his eyes as he gets deeper into the song, but by the end, it was the majority of the millions of viewers around the world who were left in a weeping mess.
"Through the Wire" at the 'Late Orchestration' Concert at Abbey Road in 2005
In September 2005, three weeks after the release of Late Registration, Kanye West held a live concert at the famed Abbey Road studios in London. A recording of the show was compiled into a live album the next year titled Late Orchestration.
Remarkably, the full symphony had already learned the compositions to most of the tracks off his brand new album. In a personal favorite song rendition from the 'Late Orchestration' show, Kanye returned to the first single he ever released: "Through the Wire." "I love doing songs from the new album," Kanye told the crowd of 300 guests, most of whom he had personally invited, "but I gotta do a joint that, if it wasn't for this one, I would've never made it this far."
"Let's see if y'all remember this joint right here," he said. And, of course, they did. The live string arrangement on "Through the Wire" sounds as though it was meant to be, and the footage -- recorded over a decade ago -- is absolutely spellbinding. Even the traditionally stoic, classically-trained musicians are riddled with goosebumps and ear-to-ear smiles in an attempt to keep up with Kanye's inspiring energy. Watch "Through the Wire" as well as a couple of other songs from the 'Late Orchestration' show below. Do it.