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Kanye West: 5 of the rapper's most controversial performances

In Sacramento he performed just three songs before announcing that the show was over.

Roisin O'Connor
Wednesday 23 November 2016 13:34 GMT
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Kanye West has expressed his desire to take over the world many, many times
Kanye West has expressed his desire to take over the world many, many times (Getty Images)

Kanye West was admitted to hospital on Monday after a disturbance call to his home in LA.

The incident follows his increasingly erratic behaviour onstage and on social media, including his concert in Sacramento where he ranted and performed just three songs before announcing that the show was over.

Here are five of West's most controversial performances:

1) San Jose (Saint Pablo tour) 2016

West announced during the Thursday-night show that he supported Donald Trump - even though he didn’t vote in the election - and called his campaign “genius - because it worked”.

Fans grew restless and began booing and throwing things towards his hanging stage. He eventually returned to playing music, but by then the audience were already making their way toward the exits.

2) The Brits 2015

This was a blistering, powerful delivery of Yeezy’s track ‘All Day’ - West stormed the stage with 70 or so men in black tracksuits, two of whom were wielding flame-throwers. Included in the group were Skepta, Jammer, Krept and Konan, Stormzy and Novelist. So he essentially brought the entire grime scene to the Brits.

Some argued that Kanye was just using the British music scene as a prop for his own performance - but others believed that it was more a way of pointing out the irony that those artists would have struggled to get a place on the Brits stage without him.

Grime’s godfather Wiley knew that “a statement was made” either way. On Twitter he wrote: “Kanye Knows The Brits Ain’t letting dons in there like that so he kicked off the door for us. Imagine 1 of us saying Yeh I’m bringing 20 dons.”

3) The MTV VMAs 2016

He only had a few allotted minutes and he wasn’t going to let them go to waste. Kanye went on a long, rambling rant about poverty, creative genius and his former girlfriend Amber Rose before dropping his latest work starring Teyana Taylor.

4) Glastonbury 2015

His appearance at the festival was controversial enough - people started a petition about it and everything.

But worse was the interruption of West’s track ‘Black Skinhead’ by comedian Lee Nelson, who ran onto the Pyramid stage during his fourth song before being wrestled off by a security guard. Nelson later dedicated the prank to Taylor Swift. West attempted to continue the song but asked to stop and restart the performance.

5) Sacramento (Saint Pablo tour) 2016

After a rant where he criticised everyone from Jay Z and Beyonce to Mark Zuckerberg and Hillary Clinton, West told the crowd that the show was over after performing just three songs.

It was two nights after he told his audience in San Jose about his support for Trump.

Shortly after it was confirmed that the remaining 21 dates of his Saint Pablo tour had been cancelled.

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