Why Doesn't Anyone Get Kanye West's Jokes?

By Zach Dionne Posted Jan 18th 2011 12:51PM

Kanye West's comically self-referential Twitter gag on Friday -- telling Britney Spears "I'mma let you be #1, but me and Jay-Z single is one of the best songs of all time!" -- was pretty straightforward (and for the record, we got the joke). Then it spawned enough media scrutiny to send Kanye into a long tweet session deriding gossip and the insatiable celebrity microscope.

"This s*** takes the air out my lungs sometimes from blogs to news reports... enough already!!! All I do is focus on my work," West wrote after reading MSNBC's salacious headline, 'Kanye Tries to Start a Twitter War With Britney.'

The whole scene left us wondering: Why doesn't anyone get Kanye's jokes? He's not a stand-up comic and he doesn't star in a sitcom, but does that mean our collective device for humor detector is permanently switched to OFF when Kanye speaks, tweets or raps?

In the now-infamous disruption of Taylor Swift's 2009 MTV Video Music Awards acceptance speech, Kanye spat the line, "Yo Taylor, I'm really happy for you, I'ma let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time!" Yeezy's subsequent interviews (see: Lauer, Matt) and raps ('Runaway,' anyone?) left little ambiguity to the incident: He wasn't kidding around.

But when the misplaced VMAs sentiment spawned a deluge of viral humor running with the "I'ma let you finish, but..." theme, resulting in sites like imaletyoufinish.com and kanyegate.tumblr.com, Kanye got wise to the joke and poked fun at himself without resorting to incongruent self-deprecation:

Britney's manager Adam Leber immediately bristled, tweeting back, "@kanyewest Thanks for 'letting' us be #1. Much appreciated...."

Kanye pulled the not-at-all scandalous Britney tweet and replaced it with a benign, "On a serious note I'm truly happy for @AvrilLavigne and @BritneySpears... No hate in 2011!" He then pondered the hive-mind's choice to ignore his (arguably unnecessary) LOL disclaimer posted shortly after the much-retweeted Britney joke:

Kanye West Twitter

Then on Monday, three days after the initial Britney joke hit, Kanye explained in a series of tweets:

"I was actually surprised that a record as raw as 'H*A*M' could make it to #2 on iTunes. How can u 'let' someone be number one??!! That was the whole joke!!! I know intelligent people know this so bear with me. When I said the comment about Brittney I was giving her props for being #1 not dissing her at all! But stop making it seem that my aim is to hurt or down people! That's just not my style! As pop stars we're all in this s**t together! We on the inside of the TV!"

From the moment his debut 'The College Dropout' hit seven years ago, Kanye has shown a propensity for jokes, peppering his albums with skits, puns and references to Will Ferrell movies. Oftentimes West will laugh on a track, not in a sinister style, but like a guy who's just having fun.

When the Britney tweet hit, we cited Kanye's last "I'ma let you finish" joke, which came in the form of his free G.O.O.D. Fridays jam posted last summer, 'See Me Now.' As the song -- featuring both soul singer Charlie Wilson and Beyonce -- winds to a close, Kanye jokes, "Uncle Charlie, by the way, and I'ma let you finish, but I got Beyonce on the track." Incidentally, 'See Me Now' is also a standard for Kanye's humor; barely concealing laughter, Kanye shouts, "We the greatest in the world, baby!" -- an egotistic sentiment on paper, but a harmless celebration when actually played back. Then he cackles, because he does have an all-star cast on the track, because he's having a blast and because he has a sense of humor. Hear it:

So dear media counterparts: Quit crucifying Kanye for a headline. Go after someone with less talent and less platinum records. Go after someone who really doesn't know how to crack a joke.

We'll let the man himself wrap it up with his closing tweets on the subject -- humor, heart and 'Ye out:

Kanye West Humor

Tags: Kanye West

Comments

(56)

Tuesday 18 January

By Heartbreak Kid

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Ya know why? Maybe because Kanye West IS NOT FUNNY!!
"I'mma"?? what kind of Ebonics BS is that?? No wonder this country is illiterate with morons like Kanye butchering the English language. Kanye, what would "ya moms" say about all these unfunny attenpts at humor?? Just GO AWAY and leave all the white girl singers alone...you're scaring them.

By pennie

i agree

By themeeker

Sign me up on the "he's not funny" list. He IS a joke, but a really, really bad one.

By mickey

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Kayne, imma let you shut up and get outa my face now. You fail at being an idiot.

By Suss2it

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Isn't it a good thing to fail at being an idiot?

Wednesday 19 January

Not if you're WORSE than an idiot.

By cp125

you're right on - he's a moron.

Friday 21 January

By Will

"I'mma" is a contraction of "I'm gonna", or, if you cant figure that out either, "I am going to". Its pretty self-explanatory.

By jms2161

Kinte West IS a "joke." jms

By OfAlaska

Him so tough, him so cool, him don' havta go to school, walk on knuckles always drool, tell them beeachs kiss his tool, just another hip-hop fool!

By Ashlee

Thank you! I feel the same about Kanye and Snooki...when, oh when, will their 15 minutes be up?!

By BobbyWhite

ohhhh people these days... kanyes album won over 20+ album of the year awards, including one from TIME magazine, went platinum, and has shows every other weekend. you may hate him, but uh... hes kinda successful and his music is something different.

And 15 minutes of fame? kanye west is the 4th richest man in hip hop... and has been around since 1999 when he started getting paid for producing. Learn your facts

By jayjayjj50

everyone here is upset over a kanye joke on twitter, and kanye is the one with all the issues. POT MEET KETTLE.

By robral61

When are People going to Relize that he doesn't care what you think. He only does these things to Keep Himself in the Spotlight.

Nevertheless Lita, robral61 is absolutely right. A good point is a good point even if it's not perfectly written.

By kyleb

His jokes don't go over because jokes and jerks don't mix. If he told 15 of Foxworthy's best jokes, no one would laugh.

Monday 24 January

By Jack

that's not saying much... if Foxworthy told 15 of his own best jokes, no one would still laugh.....

By DrNels

Kanye West cares way too much about what the media thinks of him, and that's the problem. I think people knew it was a joke but knew baiting him would get him to do more, which he did. It's like the media yells "Jump!" and Kanye asks, "How high?"

By Marsha

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Either that or he has that old school entertainment way of thinking that as long as they're talking good or bad about you at least they're talking (somthing like that).

I love Kanye's work. Late Registration is one of my favorite cds, and I'm not even all that into hip hop. If they were to do a list of all time favorite albums, I'm pretty sure it would make the list.

By becky

this is like the LeBron crap...........get over it.....Kanye is Kanye. why get yourself all in an uproar. read his tweets or turn the darn thing off. listen to his music or not.....no big deal.
i happen to like kanye, btw. and i am like him.......we need to be a little less intense..........chill people chill

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