Kanye West blew up the Internet with his acceptance speech for the Video Vanguard Award as he ripped into a long off-the-cuff speech spanning his opinions on artistry, Taylor Swift, confidence in today's youth and an announcement for his presidential candidacy in 2020.
Swift presented the award to West in a funny and touching speech that addressed the controversy between the two artists.
In 2009 West stole the spotlight from Swift when he stormed on stage to take her VMA for Best Female Video and declare that Beyonce should have won. Ever since then the feud between the two has been talked about non-stop. But, Taylor put that all to rest.
"I first met Kanye West six years ago, on this stage in fact," Swift said opening her brief speech calling Kanye a friend. "To all the other performers I love you and ima a let you finish, but Kanye West has had one of the best careers of all time."
The Video Vanguard Award is meant to honor a lifetime achievement in the art of creating music videos. No one is more deserving of this award than Kanye, partly because he cares so much about this art.
He and his wife Kim Kardashian lit up as West reveled in the moment; truly humbled by this award he's worked all his life to achieve. However, in true Kanye fashion he was going to make this night interesting.
After thanking Swift he went into an emotional breakdown of his feelings about the 2009 VMA incident.
"I often think back to the first day I met you also, I think about when I'm in the grocery store with my daughter, and I have a really great conversation about fresh juice," West said. "They say 'well you're not that bad AFTERALL.' It crosses my mind when I'm at a baseball game and 60,000 people boo me. ... If I had a daughter at that time would I have gone on that stage and grab the mic from someone else?"
He said that the contradiction is he cares about artists and fights for them, but doesn't always know the best way to express that.
"I will die for the art and what I believe in and the art might not always be polite," Kanye said.
During this obviously improved speech, he also admitted he was high.
"Y'all might be asking 'did he smoke something before he came up there?' The answer is yes I might have smoked a little something," he said looking like he almost immediately regretted saying that.
He went on to acknowledge that he has a lot of confidence (and perhaps arrogance) but that kids today should have that same confidence and use it to stand up for themselves.
Finally, in a true drop of the mic exit, he announced that he'll run for president in 2020. Given how earnest the rest of the speech felt, I wouldn't rule out a run.
Watch Kanye announce he's running for president at the 2015 MTV VMAs below:
