In a new interview with Billboard, Beck discussed the infamous incident at the Grammys a couple of years ago where Kanye West took the stage when Beck won best album, and said that Beyonce deserved the award. Beck confirmed to Billboard that Kanye sent messages to him after the fact through his wife, but never called him directly.
Did you get to talk to her afterward?
:I didn’t then, but I did recently. I was really thankful for that conversation. I wrote her a long note after the Grammys, too. Because I saw a bit of that on the internet, where they pit two musicians against each other. The idea of being on one side versus another in music is just preposterous to me.”
Did you and Kanye ever get to talk?
“I never did. But I got messages from him [through] other people that know him.”
He said he spoke to your wife.
“Yeah, there were some conversations. He never called me, but he was very thoughtful and effusive. I didn’t take much offense [at him interrupting the acceptance speech] because I don’t know if he knew my music. I kind of got the point of what he was saying.”
Beck also discussed the incident on BBC recently.
Asked about how the episode meant that he was in “an elite club” with Taylor Swift – referring to the fact that they’d both been interrupted by West at awards shows – Beck then revealed that West had later told Swift that he liked ‘Morning Phase’.
“We were laughing about it. She’d had dinner with Kanye after the Grammys thing happened and ‘Morning Phase’ came on in the restaurant they were in and he stopped the conversation and said: ‘What is this? This is good.’ She was smiling and said: ‘This is ‘Morning Phase’!’
“So even when he went on that whole thing I didn’t take it personal and he reached out after,” he continued. “Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion. Ultimately he had let me know that he liked the record.”
Asked about how the episode meant that he was in “an elite club” with Taylor Swift – referring to the fact that they’d both been interrupted by West at awards shows – Beck then revealed that West had later told Swift that he liked ‘Morning Phase’.
“We were laughing about it. She’d had dinner with Kanye after the Grammys thing happened and ‘Morning Phase’ came on in the restaurant they were in and he stopped the conversation and said: ‘What is this? This is good.’ She was smiling and said: ‘This is ‘Morning Phase’!’
“So even when he went on that whole thing I didn’t take it personal and he reached out after,” he continued. “Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion. Ultimately he had let me know that he liked the record.”
Beck discussed Prince, David Bowie, and Leonard Cohen’s death in a new LA Mag interview.
“Those are three really special, unique artists. One of the reasons you start making music is so maybe someday you can make music with those people. I would never be so presumptuous to think I could keep what they did alive, but I do keep their work as a high bar. It may be a hundred yards above my head, but it’s something to reach for—a reference for what I’m trying to do. Music has a mind of its own. It’ll progress the way it’s going to progress. There’s a specific language of music, and every decade you’re learning a new language. Man, Songs from a Room by Leonard Cohen may be old-fashioned, but the richness, the craft—there’s something to keep alive.”
