Brad Paisley had no qualms about having a little fun at the expense of Kanye West at Wednesday night’s CMA Awards, which he co-hosted with Carrie Underwood in Nashville.
“Him I wasn’t worried about,” Brad told Access Hollywood’s Nancy O’Dell backstage at the awards show. “I didn’t think I’d run into him back here.”
Brad and Carrie opened the 2009 CMA Awards by tweaking the lyrics to “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys” to include a reference to the rapper.
“Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to Kanye,” Brad sang with Carrie. “Let them pick guitars and drive them old trucks, ‘cause cowboys have manners, they don’t interrupt.”
And following the show, Brad said the jab showed that country music supports their own.
“We do,” he told Nancy. “That was one of the lines in the monologue – that you won’t see those fights on this show. We get along in this style of music. We end everything with ‘Bless your heart.’ You can say anything about somebody and say that… ‘They stink! Bless their heart.’ And that’s the Southern way.”
Brad actually took part in two Kanye swipes over the course of the night.
In addition to the opener, he rattled off a thank you speech after Carrie complimented him on the video for “Welcome To The Future.” And as Brad gave props to his people, 88-year-old country star Little Jimmy Dickens stormed the stage in the same style as the hip-hop star did to Taylor at September’s VMAs.
“I could not believe they went for that and we got to do that,” Brad said of the bit with the pint-sized country legend. “It was one of the thrills of my life seeing him walk out on that stage… It was awesome.”
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