Since its release, Kanye West‘s monumental album The Life Of Pablo has been a typical source of controversy.
From being only available on divisive streaming platform Tidal to the constant updates from Kanye himself, it seems as if everything he’s done since the release has added fire to the many debates surrounding the record. One of its most controversial moments is contained within the lead single Famous, which contains West’s now infamous ‘diss’ of Taylor Swift.
Now, at a concert in Manilla, the man known as Yeezy has given a performance which featured several tracks off TLOP never before heard live. After performing Famous he went on to speak about the single to the crowd, and to share the significance of the single for him.
“What I wanted you to know the whole time in the spirit of Nina Simone, in the spirit of real artists, this is the song that broke the writer’s block for me because it’s something I wanted to say so bad that they told me I couldn’t say,” said West. “That night when I went onstage was the beginning of the end of my life. Lady Gaga canceled the tour the next day. You know what night I’m talking about. When I just said what everybody else was thinking.”
West referenced specifically a now-infamous night in 2009 when he interrupted Swift’s MTV Music Video of the Year Award speech to instead praise Beyonce’s clip for Single Ladies.
“So if I get in trouble for saying the truth; what’s being said the rest of the time?” he said. “I fought to make that (Famous) the first single off of Pablo (TLOP).”
The performance came shortly after TLOP was slated to be the first album to go top of the Billboard Top 200 albums chart from streaming, with final figures to be released later today.
Watch snippets from Kanye’s Manilla performance, here below.
Watch: Kanye West Explains The Importance of Famous.
Watch: Kanye West performs at Paradise IMG, Manilla
