You would be forgiven for assuming that if anyone was going to ignore a word limit for speeches, it would be the guy who just last year gave a 743 word speech (which came in at 13 minutes) in which he announced his plan to run as a 2020 presidential candidate. We honestly thought it couldn’t be done, but overnight Kanye West delivered what it probably going to be his shortest speech ever, coming in at well under a minute, at the 20th annual Webby Awards.
The Webby Awards purposely place a five word limit on all speeches not only to keep things moving nice and quickly, but to ensure that the night is as vibrant, entertaining and exciting as possible while still celebrating the best in online content. Just as the rest of the night’s speeches (and those from years past, which you can view on their website for shits and gigs) Kanye stuck to keeping things short and… well, sweet might not be the right word for it.
The package that rolled before his re-recorded acceptance speech flew through the rapper’s many and varied accomplishments with particular attention paid of course to his record-breaking release of The Life of Pablo via online streaming media earlier this year. TLOP saw West reach the top spot of the Billboard Top 200 – the first album to do so solely through streaming purchases.
I also wanted to point out that it’s the first album to go number 1 off of streaming!!!
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) 9 April 2016
After the package announcing his award for Artist of the Year rolled, a pre-recorded clip of Kanye (times three) played, in which he confirmed what everyone already believed: “I hate short speeches.”
Also appearing at the ceremony, which you can now watch in full on the official website, was Action Bronson as he presented the award for Best Cultural Blog/Website to VICE, who accepted with an equally amusing: “Kanye – *smooches-Webby* fuck that’s delicious.” – no doubt in reference to Bronson’s show for the platform.
Image: Billboard