Kanye West's 10 Most "Kanye" On-Camera Moments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqPGImLF0m0

This is a prime example of how a headline can completely determine your perception of the event it describes.

If you watch the whole video, once Kanye calms down he actually begins to make some very interesting, very relevant points. "At the end of the day, Lucian Grange [the chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group] still cut my music checks," he tells Sway. For a man with ambitions to reach the very pinnacle of influence in popular culture, the idea that Kanye is essentially an employee of the most powerful man in the music industry must be painful to stomach. He relates this to his fashion goals as well, complaining about the lack of money and knowledge that had hampered him to this point as he tried to enter the upper echelons of the clothing world. And he brings in the theme of slavery once again: "We're slaves to Nike, we're slaves to Benz, we're slaves to public perception...you know, what's somebody gonna say after the interview, 'Wow, you let Kanye do that, you should've checked him.'"

Of course Kanye is a slave to public perception. And that's why going off on Sway for the first two minutes of this video merely reinforced much of the world's preconceived notion that he is an insane, egomaniacal buffoon. Yelling "I am Warhol, I am the number one most impactful artist of our generation, I am Shakespeare in the flesh" not only provides his haters with a zesty quote, but also comprises an assertion that Kanye can't necessarily back up with objective facts. More critically, though, he makes this statement by shouting it at Sway, a legendary interviewer who keeps his cool and comes off looking far more mature than his guest. If Kanye has an objective problem, it's with self-control, and that issue is on full display here.