Kanye West gave us arguably the biggest moment at this year’s VMA’s when he closed out his Vanguard Award Speech by announcing his run for presidency in 2020. Well it turns out, there could’ve been more memorable moments from the Chicago legend as he was originally was set to perform some songs as well.
According to executive producer Van Toffler, who spoke with Billboard earlier this week, MTV thought Kanye was going to do a medley of hits originally, before finding out that wasn’t the case 10 minutes before his slotted appearance. He says,
“We originally thought Kanye was going to do a medley. Then we thought he was going to not do music and talk. Then, about two acts into the show, we thought he would do a couple-song medley. This is after the show started. Then, about an act before, we found out that he might not do music and just speak -- but we had to be prepared for both, so we had a track cued up. We were in the truck and we heard this 10 minutes before he was to accept the award.”
Talking further on Kanye’s mid-show switch up, Toffler expressed that Kanye has the privilege to do whatever he wants due to his past moments at the award show.
"We decided to be open to whatever Kanye wanted because he’s given us so many moments—unexpected ones. So we weren’t sure whether he would break into song or not. We had a track—he would have rapped to his biggest hits."
Later, Toffler went on to mention the Miley Cyrus x Nicki Minaj awkward face off as well, explaining that they were “not playing.”
Read all that and more on this year’s VMA’s in the full interview here.
