According to TMZ, Kanye West’s four-minute performance on the VMAs this Sunday will be filled with whatever the hell he wants to do—as opposed to, say, a request that he perform his latest hit or debut a new one, for instance, as we can assume many of the other performers will do.
I personally think giving Kanye a lack of structure is a conceptually great idea, but am a tiny bit trepidatious about the outcome upon execution. Worst case scenario: he does some minimalist Beecroft art shit with a gong a la his runway show for Yeezy Season 1. Best case scenario: a four-minute rant (LORD WILLING), freestyle, or something like his fantastic Brit Awards performance, with fire and every grime luminary around.
Additionally, if I were any of the other performers—including Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Ariana Grande, Britney Spears, Ty Dolla $ign and maaaybe Bey—I would be pissed at the leeway afforded to this one performer and not to me. If the rumors are true and Viacom is in as deep shit as it’s reported to be, the only smart move here is to just go full performance art and let the whole thing descend into chaos. Or, since everybody seems to love the freaking ‘90s so much, why don’t they just have a slam poetry session for two hours. They’re supposed to be about the new power generation and the youth mantra right now is disruption!
Here are some other ideas for Kanye’s performance this Sunday: