Kanye West and Rick Rubin's 808 Acceptance Speech Video Is So Weird and Genius at the Same Time—Watch!

Duo put together an interesting clip with the help of Mark Romanek for the Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards

By Bruna Nessif Apr 24, 2014 8:58 PMTags
Kanye WestYouTube

Quick music lesson: When you hear the term "808" in a hip hop song, its not referring to an area code (contrary to common belief, but shout out to Hawaii!). They are actually referring to the Roland TR-808 drum machine—a very important tool that was first introduced in the early '80s and became a staple for music producers.

Now, with that said, Rick Rubin and Kanye West put together a rather bizarre but genius video acceptance speech on behalf of the TR-808 Drum Machine for the Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards with the help of film and music video legend Mark Romanek.

So what made it so weird? Sigh, where to start?!

First off, you don't hear Rubin or Yeezy speak at all throughout the video.

Instead, Romanek put a bunch of pre-recorded interview footage with Rubin and West to use, dubbing their voices in a foreign language and using subtitles to relay the message.

"Kanye and I would like to give thanks on behalf of the Roland TR-808 drum machine. It continues to be responsible for new music some 30 years after its release and discontinuation," Rubin (kinda) said. Yeezy keeps it simple with, "Thank you very much."

But that's not even the strangest part. Throughout the video message, Romanek used clips from the film version of Pink Floyd's The Wall and a vintage dancing scene from the comic duo Laurel & Hardy, who are groovin' to 'Ye's "I'm In It." And then there's a bear trying to climb up an endless flight of stairs. Like, what's going on?!

You just have to experience it for yourself.