Kanye West on disabled-fan controversy: ‘Welcome to today’s news’

The unstoppable Kanye West took time Monday during the final stop of his recent concert swing through Australia to address the pounding he’s taken on social media for halting a performance a few nights earlier to ensure that anyone not standing was legitimately disabled.

In yet another rant, West referred to criticism directed at him saying, “This is such big media-press-news and everything that obviously they trying to demonize me for. It’s like, ‘Welcome to today’s news, ladies and gentlemen.’ We’ve got Americans getting killed on TV, kids getting killed every weekend in Chicago, unarmed people getting killed by police officers…It makes you just want to reflect on what are the things that are a little bit more sensationalized than others.”

The trouble started at the Friday night show of The Yeezus Tour in Sydney, at which he was quoted by the Daily Mail Australia as saying, “I can’t do this show until everybody stand up. Unless you got a handicap pass and you get special parking…. Imma see you if you ain’t standing up, believe me, I’m very good at that.”

One fan who had remained seated raised up her prosthetic leg, at which point West announced “OK, you fine.” A short time later, he halted the show again after spotting another person still sitting, telling the crowd, “This is the longest I’ve had to wait to do a song, it’s unbelievable,” before sending one of his crew into the audience to make sure that person was disabled. Then West announced, “It’s fine” and continued the show.

On Monday night in Brisbane, West responded, telling his audience, “They want the masses—people who’ve never heard my albums—to somehow read a headline that reads negative, and think that I’m a bad person or something.”

“This is rap [expletive] music,” he continued. “This is real expression. This is real artistry. You know, an artist’s career doesn’t happen in one cycle of news—an artist’s career happens in a lifetime. And if you’re a true artist, you’re willing to die for what you believe in.”

“At my concerts,” he added, “I make sure everybody has as good a time as possible. So all this demonizing me, it ain’t goin’ to work after a while. Pick a new target.”

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