Two weeks ago, rapper Kanye West was booed at Bonnaroo before and after his show began nearly two hours late. Since then, many have criticized West for being an egomaniac who didn’t give his all in the 4:26am performance. Yesterday, West responded in a blog on his web site.
“Never say I didn’t give my all! This shows no matter how hard you try to be good at something there will be people there to lie about you and bring you down … I’m fucking hurt by this one. Bonnaroo should have released a statement in my defense … [Note: I've removed the ALL CAPS from West's original post.]
For full disclosure purposes, aside from one or two tracks, I’m not a big Kanye West fan. Despite my preference for other hip-hop artists, however, I can honestly say that West appeared to give his all in his Bonnaroo performance. But the problem was not so much the quality of or effort behind his performance. It was that he never addressed what was clearly a major issue.
What does that mean? I’m not suggesting that West should have apologized for events that may or may not have been entirely his fault (Pearl Jam went long and West’s stage took an inordinate amount of time to construct). What I am suggesting, however, is that he would have done well to acknowledge the fans who stuck around to see him.
Bonnaroo is a four-day music festival where performances begin around noon. The ‘day’ West performed, many people, including myself, had been watching shows for more than 12 hours. During each performance, from Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings and Gogol Bordello to Ozomatli and Lupe Fiasco, each artist addressed the crowd and the sheer awesomeness of the entire festival. (Anyone who’s been to Bonnaroo knows that someone can merely yell Bonnaroo and nearly everyone within shouting distance will respond with a hearty “woo!” signifying the beauty of the event.)
Despite all this and despite knowing that the audience had waited for him for nearly two hours, Kanye decided not to break the theatrical wall of his crashed spaceship. While he may have given his all in the performance, he failed to demonstrate, as he wrote in his blog, that he does this all for the fans. Had he said, “Thank you for staying up with me, Bonnaroo” or something similar, the boo birds would have likely stopped, the glow sticks would have ceased flying on stage, and the audience would have been able to focus on a relatively dynamic, one-person performance.
Unfortunately, West did nothing to dissuade people’s frustration with being made to wait for nearly two hours. Maybe the delay wasn’t his fault and maybe everyone had a choice to stay or leave, but the failure to recognize the situation as such meant that people didn’t leave the show saying, “Jesus Walks brought the house down.” Instead, they walked back to their tents at dawn saying, “I can’t believe I waited two hours for that”, “That spaceship thing was wack”, and “He really is an egomaniac”; all of which had nothing to do with his effort and everything to do with his brand.