By: Matt Altieri

I never have honestly liked or even listened to Kanye West too intently. It’s not that I dislike his music or him as a person, I actually enjoyed The College Dropout (Rock-A-Fella, 2004) the few times that I had heard it. West, as an artist, is a very interesting character; even though he labels himself as a voice of a generation, he is chastised by the public as a fool. Perhaps this is due, in part, to his blog entries in all capital letters that KIND OF LOOK LIKE THIS AND COMPLIMENT THE HIS ABUSRDITY.

However, most of his recent criticism derives from the incident in which he embarrassed Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards, exclaiming that “I’m sorry, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time!”
Days pass, and West is ridiculed by the media, the internet, and even President Obama, who called him a jackass. Make no mistake about it, Kanye West is a jackass.

But really, I’m sorry Kanye, but Ol’ Dirty Bastard had one of the best interruptions of all time!

On Feb. 25, 1998, the 40th annual Grammy Awards were nearly coming to an end as the Song of the Year category was presented. Shawn Colvin and John Leventhal emerged as the victors. As Colvin and Leventhal walked on stage to accept their awards, so did Russell Tyrone Jones, better known to the world under the aliases of the Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Big Baby Jesus, Ol’ Dirt Schultz, etc.

Big Baby Jesus was clearly upset, first telling the audience of his poor purchasing choices by saying, “Uh, I went and bought me an outfit today that costed a lot of money…today.” Obviously upset that he had lost the Best Rap Album category to Puff Daddy for his album No Way Out (Bad Boy, 1997), the Ol’ Dirt Schultz reminded everyone everywhere that “Puffy is good, but Wu-Tang is the best!” He then promptly departed the stage, yelling, “I want you to know that this is ODB and I love you all! Peace!”

Now compare this to Kanye’s incident: Dirt McGirt stormed the stage and demanded that the viewers know that the Clan had been shafted. He said what he needed to say and left, ignoring the presence of Colvin and Leventhal and leaving them as innocent bystanders of his crazed rant. West directly focused on the award Taylor Swift received and tried to then insight the audience to shun Swift by pointing out that Beyoncé had a clearly superior music video, “Single Ladies.” Not only this, but CNN also reported that Kanye promptly showed the audience the middle finger when they showed distain for his action.

Kanye West didn’t even have half the class that ODB did during his incident, using Beyoncé as a reason to interrupt Taylor Swift. Kanye had no business interrupting and creating an awkward situation, as it was not his video or even nomination. Aside from this, Kanye went on to post an apology on his blog and then deleted it. ODB didn’t even acknowledge the people he was interrupting and most certainly did not apologize for it. He said what he needed to, and then respectfully left.

Kanye West is simply living in the shadow of greater, more eccentric artists such as Dirt McGirt, Ol’ Dirt Schultz, better known to children everywhere as the Ol’ Dirty Bastard. “Wu-Tang is for the children!” screams ODB before he leaves the stage. He couldn’t be more correct. Imagine what we could learn from Mr. Jones.