Kanye West 'paints' his way back onto MTV
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Kanye West is "painting" a new picture on MTV on Thursday, debuting a video he hopes will offer fans a better image of himself than the one he made at the network's award show last year when he interrupted Taylor Swift's acceptance speech.
"It's not a video...it's a painting," the rapper said of his new video, called "Power", airing Thursday night.
At MTV's Video Music Awards in September 2009, West unexpectedly took to the stage of the live televised broadcast when country singer Swift won best female pop video. West grabbed the microphone from Swift's hands and declared that R&B singer Beyonce should have won instead.
MTV never officially banned Kanye West from their studios after last fall's VMA Awards, and the network continued to play his old videos. But since then, he has not debuted any new work on MTV, and there has been much speculation on music websites about whether the network would take him back.
MTV's head of music and talent, Amy Doyle, told Reuters "there's no beef" with the rapper and that they have moved on.
"We've always been supporters of his art and his music, and we're excited to partner with him, whether it's his new painting or new album," said Doyle.
Doyle said the new 90-second video does resemble "more of a living painting" and not a traditional video.
"It's up for interpretation, like any piece of artwork. It is provocative and will keep people talking," Doyle said.
And igniting fan buzz is one thing West does best.
After last year's dust-up at the VMA's, fans and fellow musicians were outraged. Singer Kelly Clarkson called West "a sad human being," while "American Idol" runner-up Adam Lambert wrote on his Twitter page, "Kanye needs to chill. He freaks out every year. It ain't that deep, man."
West later appeared on a TV talk show to apologize, saying he would took some time off to "analyze how I'm going to make it through the rest of this life, how I'm going to improve."
Also on Thursday, MTV is premiering the new music video for Eminem and Rihanna's single "Love The Way You Lie," which airs two hours before Kanye's.
The two debuts follow a series of similar premiere videos on MTV earlier this year, from Justin Bieber's "Never Let Go" and Mike Posner's "Cooler Than Me" to Muse's "Resistance" and Maroon 5's "Misery".
"I think this means that artists still want MTV to be the first place to introduce their music video, and it's the loudest way to get the video out to fans," said Doyle.
Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" is also on the debut line-up and set to air on Tuesday, August 10.
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