I have to start off by saying I am both a fan of Beyoncé and Beck, with my love of Beck blooming before Beyoncé even became a solo artist. In case you’ve been living the life of a reclusive hermit and haven’t emerged until today, this is the offending action that we will be referring to:
http://youtu.be/BKdtuKwiV44
It came off as a joke, albeit not a funny one. That was until he spoke about it afterwards and we found out that he had the serious intention of pulling off another “Kanye Moment” , like he did with Taylor Swift a few years ago. We know that Kanye was in the wrong for pulling this stunt, even if at first it seemed like a joke, but he made things worse by going on a rant saying Beck should have given his award to Beyoncé, who, in his mind obviously deserved it more. He also said that they should award true creativity and innovation, or the artists won’t be coming back. Whether Kanye will be invited back is still to be determined, but one thing we know for certain is that precautions should be put in place to keep people from rushing to the stage during another person’s acceptance speech, like barbed wire, armed guards or jagged pitfalls.
Kanye is once again in the spotlight for his bold move and even bolder ideas, but he has become good friends with bad press. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and Kanye is no stranger to making his sometimes outlandish opinions known, but there is a time and place. Neither of which are at an awards show he willingly attended about how they don’t support creativity. That just sounds like the perfect reason to boycott or not attend something rather than perform not once, but twice at this same show. Although he would argue against the very idea, Kanye is not the foremost authority on music. He does make a lot of music I do personally enjoy, but that by no means makes him the best judge for who is deserving of an award. Honestly, if it were up to him, he would get all the awards because, well, he is obviously flawless. He is a small part of a large music industry, and even though he does have knowledge on music, he has no right presuming who is deserving of accolades, and especially no right criticizing or ranking another person’s creative contributions. Now, we have arrived to the point.
Because of Kanye’s actions, the public opinion has parted with people acknowledging that Beyoncé’s album should have won over Beck’s, or vice versa. It has gotten to the point that even Buzzfeed articles are coming out capitalizing on the drama, claiming Beck to be the better musician and more creative. Does this sound familiar? It should, because that is also exactly the same thing Kanye West is being called out for, yet most people are falling into the hypocrisy of it all and turning into Kanye themselves. Do we have the right to criticize another person’s creative contributions, and rank them higher or lesser than each other? The answer that applies to most of us is “no”. They are so distinctly different; like apples and oranges. Since we don’t grow them both ourselves, or know much about the process in creating them, we are just consumers. The same can be said with music. We consume it, and we each have different tastes based on our personal opinions, but does that make our view right? No. In fact, it just makes our view exactly that: Ours. Sure, we’ll find people with similar interests that agree with us, but we must never forget that there is an entire world filled with genres of music we’ve probably never heard of, so automatically thinking our preference is overall better than anyone else’s is as arrogant as it is misguided.
We have to leave the judging to experts in the field who know more about the inner workings than we do, like “The Recording Academy”. Can they be flawed, and the entire system itself corrupt or lacking diversity? Of course, and they might not be the only awards show academy that needs to be looked at (*cough, cough* The Oscars *cough, cough*), but that is another conversation that we should be having instead of forcing two artists to have an unwanted grudge match and defend their work. Both are immensely talented, and both obviously earned they nomination or win, despite my personal opinion on who I wanted to win. Awards shows are naturally competitive, but when neither of the nominees are being malicious to each other, why should we be doing it in their name?
Kanye is promoting Beyoncé’s album, but it is obvious he didn’t understand the message of it. Beyoncé is a powerful, self-sufficient woman fully capable of fighting her battles, including the asinine, fictional ones created by others, that she isn’t going to even take part in. I’m talking to you, Kanye. He claims to be the champion of creativity and innovation, but by pulling his most recent stunt, he is part of the problem by judging and ultimately stifling another person’s art. I agree that Kanye is a talented musician, but as a person interacting in a world with other people, he is less than great. Those of you hating on Kanye, while perpetuating his hateful actions need to reassess your own actions. Don’t be a Kanye.
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