Kanye delivers the Auto-Tuned song in a haunting set with image of lynching tree as a backdrop, just before Taylor Swift wins Best Female Video.
- Aug 26, 2013
AceShowbiz - Footage from the star-studded MTV Video Music Awards was pouring on the internet as the show just wrapped up. One of the videos featured Kanye West delivering his song "Blood on the Leaves" off latest album "Yeezus" in Auto-Tune heavily-laced vocals.
Kanye was introduced by 30 Seconds to Mars' frontman Jared Leto. The lights were dimmed as the MC stood tall in front of a backdrop of lynching tree to give him the effect of a haunting set. "Best performance of the night @kanyewest !!!!!!!!!" tweeted baby mama Kim Kardashian.
The song samples Nina Simone's 1965 rendition of "Strange Fruit" that, according to MTV News' Gil Kaufman, "brought the story of lynchings of black Americans to a startling poignancy" which Kanye later twisted into "a modern fable about race, identity and materialism." Image of the lynching tree will be on the single's upcoming music video directed by London-born film director Steve McQueen.
Kanye took the stage just before the Best Female Video win was announced by Daft Punk along with Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers. The G.O.O.D Music rapper infamously cut off Taylor Swift's acceptance speech when she won the award four years ago, but there was no repeat of such rude interruption when she took home the title this year.
Wearing a deep-plunging navy dress, Taylor threw shade at her ex that night, "I also want to thank the person who inspired this song, who knows exactly who he is, because I got one of these. Thank you so much!" It's unclear whom she called out, but one of her former flames, Harry Styles of One Direction, was in attendance.
