Kanye West To Perform On <i>Saturday Night Live</i> - RTT News

Entertainment News (RTTNews) -  Kanye West has been confirmed as a musical guest for the October 2 episode of Saturday Night Live.

West, who has been lampooned by the SNL cast and by guest host Taylor Swift, incorporated a critique of the show into his latest single "Power."

In the song, he raps, "F--- SNL and the whole cast/Tell 'em Yeezy said they can kiss my whole a--."

West will join guest host Bryan Cranston of Breaking Bad in the episode. West has previously appeared on SNL and made his last appearance on the show in the 2007 season premiere, which was hosted by NBA star LeBron James.

Other high-profile acts who will be appearing on SNL this season include Katy Perry and former SNL actress Amy Poehler, who will join the show for its season premiere on September 25.

by RTT Staff Writer

For comments and feedback: contact editorial@rttnews.com

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Best and Worst of the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards: Chelsea Handler, Taylor Swift, Kanye West - HitFix

music Published on Monday, Sep 13, 2010 6:33 AM

It pains me to say it, but Chelsea Handler was in over her head with hosting duties. The stage was just too big for her and the audience too distant. She boringly oscillated between jokes about sleeping with rappers and jokes about partying hard, sometimes with a dash of absurdist bad behavior (like trying to steal Justin Bieber's "wig").

Handler seemed handcuffed by tactless writing, some jokes so flat you could see the disappointment creep across her face as the monitors rolled. These include mostly cringe-worthy swipes at women, almost all women -- from Taylor Swift's purity image to Mariah Carey's age. Naturally, when your subjects are limited to Ke$ha's dumb name, professional trainwreck Lindsay Lohan and the brain-suck that is "Jersey Shore," things are gonna be a little rough. I just didn't think it could be this rough.

And, yes, that's Handler riding Rick Ross, riding a motorized cart.

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VMAs 2010: Taylor Swift Dissed Kanye West in New Song - Softpedia

Reports say Taylor Swift refused to do a duet with Kanye West for the 2010 Video Music Awards, and chose instead to perform a song she’d written with him in mind. MTV executives were not at all happy with her decision.

As some of you may remember, a year ago, Kanye rushed to the stage as Taylor was accepting her award for Best Female Video, took the mic from her hand and told the crowd that she didn’t deserve to win.

Because of his rude gesture and because Taylor happens to be ever so popular, Kanye took a lot of heat in the media, which forced him to lay low for about an entire year.

Rumors said VMA producers had convinced him to duet with Taylor on the night of the awards, thus bury the hatchet for good, while also getting lots of media for it.

Instead, Taylor took to the stage, alone, barefoot and standing in what looked like a derelict house, and sang about someone who’s 32 and still growing up, and who’s not what he’s done.

Producers were not at all happy with the singer’s choice, because it was a direct diss to Kanye, Ted Casablanca of E! Online’s The Awful Truth writes.

“Certain MTV execs were not pleased with Ms. Swift’s performance – or lack-there-of, as it might be. Not only did her appearance leave some viewers scratching their heads, but Tay also shied away from a proposed duet between the two superstars,” Casablanca writes.

“Trust us, folks in the Nokia Theatre, where the VMAs were held, were just as confused listening to T.Swift – wandering around her bizarre broken down home set sans shoes and singing a little ditty that everyone knew was addressed to the Kanye – as we’re sure you viewers at home were,” the columnist goes on to say.

Though the message of the song is a positive one, the ending also coming with a sunrise (symbolic of new beginnings), the way it was rendered was simply too much for a singer who’s known for being rather “normal,” for lack of a better term.

“The whole performance was over-the-top melodramatic – Taylor’s signature style, natch – for an incident that, in retrospect, really wasn’t a big deal. And from a gal who is supposedly totally over the whole ordeal, no less,” Casablanca points out.

The fact that she had last year’s scene / interruption play in grainy images before her new song started only added to the melodramatic moment – and didn’t score Taylor any points with the same executives, the report further says.

Then again, there are also those who say Taylor is only singing about forgiveness and how everybody makes serious mistakes at some point in their life. The rest is just what people WANT to see in her new song. 

Here is Taylor Swift’s performance at the 2010 Video Music Awards. Judge for yourself.

Follow the editor on Twitter @ElenaGorgan

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Taylor Swift forgives Kanye West with a song - The Keene Sentinel

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Lady Gaga, Kanye West, Eminem And Taylor Swift: This Week's VMA Deep Cuts - MTV.com

Everybody on the MTV News team is really looking forward to this weekend, as it represents a much-needed and well-deserved rest for the entire team, almost all of whom are recovering from last weekend's 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. The VMAs show is the highlight of every year on the MTV News calendar, though in order to bring you all the best coverage and behind-the-scenes access, it takes a lot of work, sweat, shoe leather and skipped meals. So now that the show is behind us, we're going to put our feet up, get massages and have long brunches with our loved ones this weekend. And after that, our batteries will be recharged fully and we'll continue to knock the news out of the park on a daily basis.

So enjoy your weekend, because we really will be enjoying ours. And just in case you missed any of the awesome VMA coverage here on the MTV Newsroom Blog, check out all the highlights below.

» As we mentioned, the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards were this past weekend. We opened with our totally killer white carpet pre-show, where Lady Gaga started winning awards and Nicki Minaj melted faces.

» Then the VMA show followed, which opened with a stunning performance by Eminem and got bigger and more epic from there.

» Gaga was the big story, as she collected eight awards — including the Moonman for Video of the Year.

» Though her awards were plentiful, Gaga's biggest head-turning moment was when she wore an outfit made of meat to collect her final award. Everybody weighed in, from PETA and Ellen DeGeneres to style experts and the Chick-Fil-A cows.

» Of course, Gaga's meat dress threw some curve balls. (Or not.)

» It wasn't all Gaga, though. Kanye West grabbed the spotlight as well, dropping a new song called "Runaway" that is already an instant classic.

» Another big surprise? Rihanna, who jetted in from the set of "Battleship" to tear the house down with Eminem on "Love the Way You Lie."

» Taylor Swift also made some waves with a moody new song that may or may not have been about Kanye.

» In typically epic, rocking fashion, Linkin Park's performance was so massive that only an observatory could truly contain it.

» The rest of the best moments from the VMAs included appearances by Lindsay Lohan and Cher, as well as performances by Justin Bieber, Usher, B.o.B and Paramore.

» Not interested in the VMAs? Other stuff happened this week too. For example: We got to stop worrying about Joaquin Phoenix's mental health, as "I'm Still Here" director Casey Affleck admitted it was just performance art.

» Finally, don't pretend like you don't want Uncle Nino to be your Uncle Nino.

Tags Eminem, Jersey Shore, Justin Bieber, Kanye West, Lady Gaga, Linkin-Park, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, video-music-awards, VMAs

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Taylor Swifts Many Muses, From Joe Jonas To Kanye West - MTV.com

Taylor Swift has a history of writing songs about the men in her life. While the subject of her latest hit, "Mine," off her upcoming album Speak Now, remains a mystery, Swift hasn't been shy about expressing her feelings for the likes of Joe Jonas, a guy named Drew and, most recently, we presume, Kanye West. Even when she doesn't specifically name her muse in a song's lyrics, she's doesn't back down from discussing who her songs are about.
Back in 2006, when Swift was only 16, she released her track "Tim McGraw," inspired by the country singer's song "Can't Tell Me Nothin'." In it, Swift sings, "When you think Tim McGraw, I hope you think of me." She told SongWriterUniverse.com, "The song is based on true events — it happened in real life. I had a boyfriend and we had broken up. After the breakup, I wanted him to be reminded of me."
After working in the world of country for some time, Swift had a breakthrough hit with her ballad "Teardrops on My Guitar." While the guy she wrote about, Drew, wasn't famous, he is one of the few guys she calls out by name in her lyrics. "He showed up in my driveway this Christmas, and it was awkward because it was three years after I wrote the song," she said. "He was like, 'Hey.' It was definitely weird. I was going to a hockey game with my friends, and it was the most drama you could have when you have to go pick up your friends. I got over it. I wrote the song. It's a venting process."
In 2008, Swift thought her relationship with Joe Jonas was "Forever and Always," but Jonas reportedly broke up with her over the phone. And Swift wasn't afraid to open up about her relationship with her famous ex in her song, which appeared on Fearless. "With this situation, I feel like I owed it to my fans to be like, 'Look, it happened, you weren't crazy,' and address it," she told MTV News. "And I addressed it, and, you know, that's a chapter in my life that's closed now."
Finally, Taylor Swift debuted her new ballad, tentatively titled "Innocent," at the 2010 VMAs. In it, she discusses a man who has lost his path in life, but whose "streaming lights are bright to me." Given that Swift refers to "new Septembers" (the same month in which the VMAs are held), she is presumably singing about Kanye West. And Swift has made it clear that this next album will be about things and people that featured prominently in her life over the last few years.
"For me, I write everything that I live, so you've got to give yourself a little bit of time to live a lot of things so you can write about a lot of things. And my only option is to write about what I've been through and what I've lived. So thankfully, in the past two years, I've experienced a lot of things that I've been dying to write about and a lot of things that I wanted to say in the moment that I didn't," she said about Speak Now, due in October.
The Moonmen have all been handed out and the stars have gone home, but there's plenty of 2010 MTV Video Music Awards news, interviews, behind-the-scenes scoop, party reports and more still to come, so keep it locked on MTVNews.com.
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Kanye West AndTaylor Swift Join The Ranks Of Musical VMA

A week ago, both Taylor Swift and Kanye West stole the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards with their respective performances. Not only did they both deliver polished, personal renditions of their tunes, but they also joined the ranks of a rare list of artists who have unveiled brand-new music at the VMAs. Both Swift and West performed songs that had never been heard anywhere, and each came from upcoming albums that are sure to be among the biggest of 2010. What better place than the VMA stage to show off their new toys?
Actually, the VMA performances are usually dictated by the songs that were nominated for awards (or, at the very least, those artists' current singles). Eminem's show-opening salvo was the best example of this, as he busted into both "Not Afraid" (the song that netted him eight VMA nominations) and "Love the Way You Lie" (his current chart-topping single).
But clearly some artists deviate from the script. In fact, the last time an artist drew the curtain on new music at the VMAs was in 2008, when West performed new single "Love Lockdown" for the first time. Britney Spears' "Gimme More" had found its way onto the Internet before the 2007 VMAs, but her show-opening performance of the tune was the first taste for many.
Flashing back a bit, R.E.M. premiered a new song called "The Wake-Up Bomb" at the 1995 show (it later showed up on the band's 1996 on-the-road album New Adventures in Hi-Fi). Pearl Jam also unveiled a new song called "Animal" (which came out on their second album Vs. a few weeks later).
With legends like R.E.M., Pearl Jam and Spears in their corner, both West and Swift are now part of an elite fraternity. Who will be the next artist to debut new music at the VMAs? That sounds like the first question surrounding the 2011 show. Let the speculation begin!
Tags Eminem, Kanye West, pearl-jam, R.E.M., Taylor Swift, video-music-awards, VMAs
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MTV Angered by Taylor Swift's Kanye West Song at VMAs - Limelife

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Taylor Swift appears to be receiving all favorable reviews for her performance at MTV's Video Music Awards this week, but we've heard that MTV itself was a little up-in-arms. First of all, Taylor Swift went against MTV's recommendation to do a Kanye duet, and then she left the audience feeling "uncomfortable," says a new report.
Taylor Swift's public forgiveness of Kanye West through the public performance of a song did seem a little...strange. At first we applauded her maturity and willingness to tell Kanye she forgives him, but now that we're hearing what happened behind the scenes, Taylor's move sounds to have been a little self-serving.
Watch How Taylor Swift Forgave Kanye West in VMAs Performance (VIDEO)
We caught this from E! via Celebitchy late Tuesday:
"Certain MTV execs were not pleased with Ms. Swift's performance-or lack-there-of, as it might be. Not only did her appearance leave some viewers scratching their heads, but Tay also shied away from a proposed duet between the two superstars-according to impeccable MTV sources. Keep in mind this was never an official duet planned by the hip network, but, merely one several key MTV players were very much pushing for."
It's said that after Taylor's performance, the live audience inside the Nokia Theater was completely silent...because they were confused. MTV bigwigs are said to have been stunned too, because according to reports, Taylor never told them what her performance would consist of until it was almost time for her to go out onstage. By that time it's said she and Kanye formed a truce backstage...but she didn't want him out there as part of the show.
Read: Kanye West Apologizes, Writes Taylor Swift a Song
We'll agree, Kanye West took enough of Taylor Swift's stage time in 2009; but it's pretty obvious why things went down the way they did. The song Taylor sang Sunday night is on her new album that's set to come out in late October. Looks like she wanted us all to hear it so, you know, we'd go out and buy it.
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Read: Taylor Swift's New Album 'Speak Now' Out in October

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