It’s nice that Kanye is using his platform to hype younger artists. No, seriously, he built a literal platform that physically hovers over his fans from which he issues his edicts from on high. At Saturday’s Oakland stop on the Saint Pablo tour, Yeezy made it clear that he will not attend the Grammys if Frank Ocean does not receive a nomination for his album Blonde or his visual album Endless. “I’ll tell you this right now, if his album is not nominated in no categories, I’m not showing up to the Grammys,†Yeezy explained during his concert. “As artists, we’ve got to come together to fight the bullshit.†Unfortunately, Frank Ocean intentionally failed to submit both albums before the consideration deadline, perhaps due to his own feelings about the bullshit. Kanye’s workaround? A Grammy intercession, like the one Yeezy says allowed Lady Gaga to perform at the Grammys, despite failing to be nominated for Best New Artist, while the pair were planning their subsequently cancelled 2009 Fame Kills tour.
“She wasn’t nominated for best new artist, right? But they wanted her to perform at the show, they wanted her to open. So the Grammys secretly changed something about the nominations in order to nominate her in order for her to perform in the show,†he explained. Hopefully a Grammy nominating committee member who loves all-things Frank Ocean can pull some strings.