At least the latter is not true on “Late Regisration,” let alone the track in question. I don’t love it when the wrong rappers win awards, and I don’t love it when the right ones do and it goes to their head and they start acting stupid and recording bad music. I’m not sure I’d say I love it, any more than I love Terrell Owens for whining about only making seven million. Thrity minutes later seen there’s no convincin himĪnd throw a tantrum like he is three years old Only player that got robbed and kept all his jewelry “I was sick about Awards, couldn’t nobody cure me In fact he probably perpetuated the long-standing stereotype that rappers and rednecks don’t get along, despite the fact many of rap’s top artists have been and continue to come from the South, let alone that Nelly and Tim McGraw collaborated for the chart-topping hit “Over and Over.” Apparently the fact he acted like an ass wasn’t lost on him, as he even makes reference to it in “Diamonds From Sierra Leone,” the first single off “Late Registration”:
Kanye west late registration album art full#
The Grammy curse seemed to be in full effect, as Kanye was making a fool out of himself and sounding anything but gracious towards the winner. His quote about losing to a country singer was “I was the best new artist this year, so get that other bullshit out of here I don’t know if I’ll be back next year.” Open mouth, insert foot. Instead of being happy when he won for both Best Rap Album and Best Rap Single, Kanye seemed to get a chip on his shoulder which was unceremoniously knocked off at the American Music Wards when Gretchen Wilson won the Best New Artist category. Nominated for ten different awards in 2005 after achieving major crossover success with his national debut “ The College Dropout” and producing for other nominated artists like Alicia Keys and Janet Jackson. put it best when they said “Who gives a fuck about a God damn Grammy?”Īnd yet uber-producer and multi-platinum rap recording artist Kanye West seemed to very MUCH give a fuck about the God damn Grammy.
While all relevant in their own way, they certainly didn’t represent the highest echelon of the music as an artform, let alone the best work the culture produced in the year of that award ALONE. Both the industry and the fans have questioned why in an era where Rakim, KRS-One, Ice Cube, Nas and Public Enemy all recorded classics, the winners for Best Rap Performance were MC Hammer, Coolio and Sir Mix-A-Lot. The relationship between hip-hop and the Grammy’s has been fractious at best. Did anybody take Naughty By Nature seriously after they won for “Poverty’s Paradise?” Don’t you believe it went to OutKast’s head after “Stankonia?” (Well Andre’s head at least, with his wannabe-Prince ass.) It certainly did after The Fugees won for “The Score,” as they haven’t released a new studio album since. For many rappers it’s the pop culture kiss of death.
Still what may have hurt Shawn Carter the most was not the apparent contradiction of going to accept the award but the award itself.
Ironically he won that year’s “Best Rap Album” category anyway, and showed up to accept the trophy. At one time the budding hip-hop mogul actually threatened to boycott the Awards ceremony when his third album was nominated, and in doing so pointing out that deserving rap artists had gone unrecognized for years. That’s not the message Kanye’s fellow Roc-A-Fella artist Jay-Z had in mind back in 2002, but he better than anyone else would understand Kanye’s dilemma. The Grammy Awards can be both a gift and a curse to hip-hop artists. “So they asked me, why you call it ‘Late Registration’ Ye?Ĭause we takin these muh’fuckers back to school!”