Gawker’s got a leaked recording of Kanye West taken the night of the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards — better known as the night Kanye interrupted Taylor Swift as she was accepting the award for Best Female Video. Taken surreptitiously at the West Village’s Corner Bistro, the (unverified, it should be noted) tape has Kanye explaining why he caused the scene: because he cares. His actual words are slightly more roundabout:
“When I heard Eminem’s verse on the Drake shit, I went back and rewrote my shit for two days. I canceled appointments to rewrite! I fuckin’ care! You know what I’m saying? And that’s what I’m saying. Because I did that, Taylor Swift cannot win over Beyoncé! Because I wrote my verse in two days, Taylor Swift cannot beat Beyoncé. ‘Cause there ain’t gonna be no more motherfucking Elvises with no James Browns.â€
He also talks about his mother’s death and how he felt betrayed by MTV. (“My mother died for this fame shit! I moved to fuckin’ Hollywood chasing this shit. My mother died because of this shit. Fuck MTV.â€) For the record, Kanye is pro-Eminem (“Eminem won best video! Rap video! Yo, when he won that shit, I was so happy.â€) and anti-Pink ("What the fuck was Pink performing? Don’t nobody know that song.â€). He is 100 percent not wrong about Pink.
Listen to the full tape at Gawker.