The 23-city extension of his Saint Pablo tour will keep Kanye West plenty busy for the rest of the year, so he had to a little multitasking at Saturday’s show in Oakland. The Life Of Pablo artist was campaigning for a Grammy nomination. Not for his own 2016 album—which he originally claimed would never be for sale, and therefore ineligible for a Grammy—but for singer-songwriter Frank Ocean’s back-to-back release of Blonde and Endless. West talked up one or both of Ocean’s albums, which he insisted he listened to “the most” this year. (We assume LOP was a close second, in any of its various iterations.)
After talking about Lady Gaga’s own run-ins with the Grammys, West championed Ocean’s work, and threatening to miss the event if his fellow Chicago artist isn’t nominated: “I’ll tell you this right now—if his album’s not nominated in no categories, I’m not showing up to the Grammys.” West’s preemptive strike appears to have been brought on by recent suggestions that Ocean’s albums didn’t drop in time for Grammy consideration. But, let’s face it, Endless and Blonde’s protracted release meant they missed a lot of things. Still, West will not tolerate the slight to his friend and colleague, and so refuses to attend the 2017 ceremony if there are no nominations for Ocean—West hasn’t indicated what he’ll do if he misses out on a nod, but it’s presumably a similar course of action.
