Kanye West defends his controversial Taylor Swift video at the VMAs: 'This is fame bro'
"I came here to present my new video," West said as he came on the stage, "but before that I'm going to talk."
Then he went into his usual Kanye West self-serving tangent, which could go down as an all-time great VMAs moment. There was clearly no filter on what he was saying.
He talked about his controversial music video, "Famous," which has him lying in bed with other famous people, like his wife Kim Kardashian, Taylor Swift, and Bill Cosby.
"It was an expression of how we are, that audacity to put Anna Wintour next to Donald Trump," West said. "I put Ray J in there, bro. But this is fame, bro."
West also talked about violence in America.
"I was thinking at the Art Institute last year, one kid said, 'Three of my friends died and I don't know if I'm going to be the next,'" West said. "If you feel like you're seeing people dying next to you, life could start to feel worthless."
"I sit down and talk to older, rich people - aka white - and they tell me don't compare yourself to Steve Jobs, don't compare yourself to Walt Disney, and my friend Shikia told me there are three ways to keep people impoverished: take away their self-esteem, take away their resources, and take away their role models."
West went on to say that he looks up to artists and merchants and there are less than 10 in history that are his equals: "[Harry] Truman, [Henry] Ford, [Howard] Hughes, [Walt] Disney, [Steve] Jobs, [Kanye] West."