Kanye West tweets at Jimmy Kimmel
The “Yeezus” rapper launched a Twitter war with Jimmy Kimmel Thursday night, venting over the late-night funnyman poking fun at him for boasting of being the No. 1 rock star on the planet in a BBC interview.
“Jimmy Kimmel is out of line to try and spoof in any way the first piece of honest media in years” – Kanye tweeted in capital letters. “I don’t take it as a joke … You don’t have scum bags hopping over fences trying to take pictures of your daughter. Jimmy Kimmel, put yourself in my shoes.”
The Twitter explosion came a day after a skit on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” featured two bratty kids reenacting his BBC Radio 1 interview.
Kanye West.
So…Kanye West is actually pretty mad, eh?
During his monologue Thursday, Jimmy Kimmel addressed the rapper’s profanity-studded Twitter rant from earlier today in which he went off on the late-night host in response to a bit from Jimmy Kimmel Live that poked fun at Kanye’s much-talked-about interview with BBC Radio One.
“Quick question” – Jimmy kicked off the show. “Did anyone else get a very angry phone call from Kanye West about an hour and a half ago? Just me? OK, I didn’t know if he was mad at all of us.”
Picking up the subject again about 15 minutes later, he described the pre-rant call he got from Kanye.
“He told me I had two choices: apologize publicly…and that was really the only choice!” Jimmy said. “The other choice he gave was that my life—’Your life,’ he said, ‘is going to be much better if you apologize.’ Then he started tweeting today and I don’t even know if I’ve seen some of these tweets, because they’re happening as we speak…”
Next Kimmel says: “Does Kanye West know you’re not supposed to be your own hype man?” The answer, of course, is that in 2013, you are supposed to be your own hype man. Even the concept of the hype man, at least outside of live hip-hop, is fairly outdated. In the era of solo rap megastars—when the rappers that dominate the charts have names like Kanye West, Drake, Eminem, Nicki Minaj, and Jay Z—it’s precisely the job of the rapper to be his own hype man or woman. We’re a long way from Public Enemy.
The next clip Kimmel plays shows West claiming that he brought the idea for leather jogging pants to Fendi. The punch line is supposed to come when Kanye says: “How many motherfuckers you done seen with a leather jogging pant?” Kimmel responds: “I don’t know, none? Is that really a thing?” The short answer to that question is yes, they are. In fact, in hip-hop and R&B, they’re a pretty big thing, worn by names like Rihanna, Beyonce, and yes, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. If Kanye really did come up with that idea and no one listened, it’s understandable that he would be upset about it.
The next part is important. Kimmel adds: “That seems impractical to me, but I don’t know fashion. And to be honest I don’t follow a lot of what Kanye West has to say.” This is the point at which Kimmel, instead of assuming everything West has to say is laughable on its face, should at least have tried. After all, I didn’t know what Kanye meant by “leather jogging pants” either, but I did know that Kanye is an extremely intelligent person. All I had to do was Google it.
But instead of trying to understand, Kimmel does the opposite: He revels in his lack of comprehension, and puts Kanye’s words in the mouth of a child, in order to infantilize him. The point of the joke is clear – I don’t understand these remarks, so clearly they are the nonsense talk of a small child.