Kanye West's 6 Strangest Acts Over 3 Days

CHICAGO — Usually Kanye West keeps his inexplicable and unexplainable antics to one a week. But this past weekend, Kanye — wait, his name is Ye now (we'll get to that in a minute) — has outdone himself.

Like much of 21st century discourse, some of Kanye's head-scratching comments came over Twitter. Other remarks and displays came during his performances on "Saturday Night Live." The Chicago native, who has a new album dropping next month, wasn't the show's original musical guest for its season premiere. He replaced Ariana Grande, who begged off musical duties because of "emotional reasons."

So you haven't been keeping up with Kanye? Why not? Too busy watching the Cubs collapse or trying to convince other Bears fans that Mitch Trubisky is now the second coming of Sid Luckman? Well, here are the six strangest things Kanye did in the past three days, building up from "meh" to wide-eyed emoji levels of ridiculousness.

1. Changes His Name

Here's the origin of the earlier "Ye" reference. In a Saturday Twitter post, Kanye asked that he officially be called Ye.

"I am YE," the "being formally known as Kanye West" — something he also called himself in the tweet — wrote.

Ye doesn't come out of nowhere for Kanye, um, Ye. Not only is it the name of his eighth studio album (and part of his sixth album, "Yeezus"), but it's also been a nickname of sorts throughout his career.

“I believe ‘ye’ is the most commonly used word in the Bible, and in the Bible it means ‘you’,” Kanye Ye said about in February during an interview earlier this year for his "Ye" album. “So I’m you, I’m us, it’s us. It went from Kanye, which means the only one, to just Ye — just being a reflection of our good, our bad, our confused, everything.”

Name-changing isn't that odd for a music star. Pixies frontman has alternated between Black Francis and Frank Black throughout his career (his real name is Charles Thompson IV), and Prince famously changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol in 1993 because of a contract dispute only to go back to Prince in 2000 (and yes, his real first name was Prince).

2. Performs as a Bottle of Sparkling Water

Strange musical acts are not, er, strangers to "SNL." The show has invited such eclectic acts as Sun Ra, Phillip Glass and Fear in the past. Over the years, Elvis Costello was banned from the show for nearly a decade because he played "Radio Radio,"¹ the Replacements dropped an F-bomb and flashed a butt cheek during a 1986 performance,² and Sia wore a veil and had a mime³ onstage while she sang "Chandelier" in 2015.

So seeing Kanye Ye trot out Saturday dressed as a sparkling water bottle for "I Love It" was pretty standard fare for the show. But for Kanye Ye? He looked like he was shilling for an upscale suburban grocery store on the side of the highway.

3. Wore a Make America Great Again Cap on "SNL"

After Sinéad O'Connor tore up a picture of the pope following her performer in 1992, a musical act really has to go out of his or her way to make a controversial political statement on "SNL." Kanye Ye wearing that red Make America Great Again cap he's so fond of doesn't quite rise to that level.

But the cap — he wore it while singing "Ghost Town" during a third and final performance at the end of the show — is the kind of display that can give a Kanye Ye follower whiplash when it's coupled with the fact that he told TMZ on Monday that he wanted to arrange a White House meeting between Colin Kaepernick and No. 1 Kaepernick critic President Donald Trump.

While wearing a Make America Great Again cap isn't the most radical move, it does show If you like the cap, though, stick around. It'll be making another appearance.

4. Speech at the End of "SNL"

Of course, Kanye Ye being Kanye Ye, the cap was just the tip of the sparkling water when it came to political statements. The hip-hop artist went on a Trumpian tear at the end of "Saturday Night Live," which wasn't broadcast but was captured on numerous cellphones, including Chris Rock's.

"There’s so many times I talk to, like, a white person about this and they say: ‘How could you like Trump? He’s racist'," he said. "Well, uh, if I was concerned about racism I would’ve moved out of America a long time ago."

Some cast members who were asked to come on stage during Kanye's Ye's free expression moment didn't appreciate the content. Featured player Chris Redd tweeted that he wasn't onstage for that moment and end the post with an emoji of a rather unfriendly hand gesture. "Weekend Update" co-anchor Michael Che, who was onstage, explained why over Instagram in a post that's now deleted.

"[W]e stood there and listened to that n---a lie and complain and s--t on us and embarass himself, only because THAT's how dope the beat for Ghost Town is," Che wrote.

So how did Kanye Ye think things went?

And in case you're wondering, Trump had his own opinion about what happened, even though he didn't watch the show. Luckily, someone filled him in.

5. Tweet Calling for the Repeal of the 13th Amendment

Kanye Ye saved his best trick for Twitter. On Sunday, he tweeted that … well, let's let Kanye Ye tell it:

There's that cap again. Is he hiding a bad haircut? Did that sparkling water costume do some damage we don't know about?

Naturally, calling for the abolishment of the constitutional amendment that ended slavery is not something that's going to endear you to folks, even if you did record "The College Dropout." In fact, you're liable to rile Captain America, among others.

Kanye Ye later went on Twitter and TMZ to say that he misspoke and should have said "amended" instead of "abolish." He also tried to explain that he was referring to the 13th Amendment's exception clause, which allows for "involuntary servitude" as punishment for a crime. The Washington Post even backed him up on it, which Kanye Ye was quick to point out.

Thing is, Kanye Ye is a bit like the Boy Who Cried Wolf. No one knows when to take him seriously.

6. Announcing a 2024 Presidential Run

Originally, this list was only going to be five items long. But then Monday rolled around, and Kanye Ye made this bold statement to TMZ:

“I was telling my dad that I was running for office in 2024. He was like, ‘It’s gonna cost a lot of money,’ I said, ‘Dad we’re going to have all the money in the world soon as I run'."

Kanye Ye, have you thought about gaining some political experience by possibly running for Chicago mayor? I'm sure the field would welcome one more candidate.

FOOTNOTES

¹The ban was lifted in 1989, and the performance was spoofed in 1999 with Costello and the Beastie Boys during the "Saturday Night Live" 25th anniversary show.

²This performance also led to a ban for the Replacements.

³Fun fact about mimes: Becoming a mime is actually the punishment for clowns who broke the sacred and secret clown code.

Kanye West Ye performs as a bottle of sparkling water during the season premiere of "Saturday Night Live" on Saturday, Sept. 29. (Image via NBC | YouTube)