Kanye West Defends Controversial Bonnaroo Performance

June 25, 2008

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    Kanye West accepts the award for best rap album for 'Graduation'
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    Kanye West at the playoff basketball game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Denver Nuggets
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    Young Jeezy and Kanye West take the stage at the BET Awards, 2008

 
 

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: June 25, 2008

Kanye West is typing hard enough to break his MacBook Air — or at least his Caps Lock button.

Days after taking to his blog to defend Soulja Boy in the young rapper’s beef with Ice-T, the chart-topping artist — and the winner for Best Male Hip-Hop Artist at Tuesday night’s BET awards — returned with an all-caps response to criticism of his delayed performance at the Tennessee music festival, Bonnaroo.

Slated for a 2:45 AM start time on June 15, Kanye didn’t take the stage until 4:25 AM, the Associated Press reported, starting a wave of blogosphere backlash from disappointed fans. But the way ‘Ye tells it, it wasn’t his fault.

“I’m typing so hard I might break my MacBook Air… Let’s break down the walls on this ‘Truman Show’ and let you know what really occurred,” he blogged on Tuesday. The rapper went on to discuss his difficulties with festival organizers, who allegedly gave West conflicting information on their abilities to host his ambitious “Glow in the Dark” stage before initially offering him a daytime slot.

“It’s not called Glow in the Dark for no reason, squid brains!” he wrote.

But the controversy came the night of his performance, when Pearl Jam’s set ran an hour long.

“At that point we’re racing against the sun,” West wrote. With an incomplete set-up, he took the stage, only to find a main screen broken and a soaking wet floor.

“There was so much liquid on the stage I couldn’t move without slipping. I had to adjust my whole performance style because it,” said West, who sliced songs from the set to try to get to “Stronger” before dawn.

“Anyone who came to the Glow in the Dark tour can understand why I wanted people to see it properly,” he wrote. “It broke my heart that I couldn’t give these fans ‘Stronger’ in its greatest form.”

West also apologized for the flawed performance.

“I’m sorry to everyone that I didn’t have the ability 2 give the performance I wanted to… Sometimes I go 2, 3 days w/o sleep working on my performance,” he wrote. “I have to ice my knees after every show… having an expensive stage cuts my payday in half.”

Still, the rapper concluded defiantly. “Call me what you want but never say I didn’t give it my all!!!”

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