Beck handled Kanye West nearly crashing his Grammy moment on Sunday with humility and grace.
“I was just so excited he was coming up,” said Beck, 44, who walked away with the Album of the Year Grammy, beating out Beyoncé, Pharrell, Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith, told Us Weekly. “He deserves to be onstage as much as anybody. How many great records has he put out in the last five years, right?”
In the moments before his name was called, Beck admits he expected to hear Beyoncé’s. “I thought she was going to win,” he added. “Come on, she’s Beyoncé!”
Once Beck arrived on stage to accept his Grammy, West, 37, shot up to possibly vocalize his disagreement. The snafu was reminiscent of his 2009 stage-crashing moment with Taylor Swift. (After the stunt, West headed toward Swift’s seat, where the pair talked for a few minutes, hugged and high-fived.)
West appeared on E!’s after show to explain in detail how he felt about the Recording Academy’s decision to award Beck.
“I don’t know what he said, all I know is if the Grammys want real artists to keep coming back, they need to stop playing with us,” North West‘s father ranted. “We ain’t gonna play with them no more. ‘Flawless,’ Beyoncé video. Beck needs to respect artistry and he should have given his award to Beyoncé, and at this point, we tired of it.”
“Because what happens is, when you keep on diminishing art and not respecting the craft and smacking people in the face after they deliver monumental feats of music, you’re disrespectful to inspiration and we as musicians have to inspire people who go to work every day and they listen to that Beyoncé album and they feel like it takes them to another place,” he continued.
In response to West’s comments that Beck needs to respect artistry, Beck said: “You can’t please everybody, man. I still love him and think he’s genius. I aspire to do what he does.”