Jay-Z is featured in the February edition of Interview magazine. The Hip-Hop icon was interviewed by noted critic Elvis Mitchell and discussed a range of issues. Perhaps most prominent were his thoughts on Kanye West’s MTV VMA controversy. Check out an excerpt from the conversation below (Courtesy of Rap-Up.com):
On the VMA debacle: “I just think the timing of what [Kanye] did was wrong, and that, of course, overshadowed everything. He believed that ‘Single Ladies’ [by Jay-Z’s wife, Beyoncé] was a better video. I believed that. I think a lot of people believed that. You can’t give someone Video of the Year if they don’t win Best Female Video. I thought Best Female Video was something you won on the way to Video of the Year. But, hey, I guess it wasn’t—and that’s a whole other conversation about awards shows and artists.”
On award shows: “You can’t have the woman who wins Video of the Year not win Best Female Video. I mean, Herbie Hancock is great, but you can’t have him beat the Kanye album that year. I mean, come on, seriously. That can’t happen. That just lets me know that the people who get to pick these ballots just check the only name they know. I think that’s what’s happening with rap music now.”
Jay Z is usually a man of few words but when he speaks his mind, he speaks the truth. Everything that he said about the awards shows makes perfect sense and can be translated especially in the cases of the MTV Awards and the Grammy Awards. I still find it baffling that Talor Swift’s video was selected over Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies’.