Kanye West wants his fans to be all eclectic

Given that Kanye West has been going off the boil a little of late, it's probably quite brave of him to suggest to his fans that they widen their musical horizons. He might try to be a little more coherent, though:

"Nas is the only MC of my generation — maybe Rakim, but he was the generation before me — Nas was the most respected MC in every genre of rap. Nigga, he could do a song with Puffy or Wu-Tang."

Goodness, as wide as Diddy or the Wu-Tangs, eh? That's pretty adaptable.

But Kanye has more:

"How is Soulja Boy killing hip-hop? He had one of the biggest songs of the summer. If anything, he's helping keep it alive. You don't have to be Lil Wayne in order for people to say your shit is fresh.

"Open y'all's fuckin' minds. Be accepting of different people. Let people be who they are."

It's not clear if West ever goes round commenting on blogs suggesting that people's tastes are wrong and it's clear they must be bitter or haters. But it's nice to see West moving on from his usual favourite subject of himself. At least for a short while:

"You know how many people came at me, calling me 'gay' cause I wear my jeans the fresh way?" he said to the audience. "Or 'cause I said, 'Hey, dude, how y'all gonna say 'fuck' right in front of a gay dude's face and act like that's OK?' That shit is disrespectful.

"It took me time to break out of the mental prisons I was in. The stereotypes of the fear of the backlash that I would get for believing in what I believe in, for accepting people for who they are."

I don't know about you, but I lost that somewhere around the idea of wearing jeans in a fresh way. And I can't begin to understand what a stereotype of a fear of a backlash is, but I think he's saying it's harder to be tolerant than it is to be victimised. And that there should be some sort of parade for people who wear their trousers freshly.