Kanye West's Beatles Comparison

25 November 2008

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Kanye West wants his fellow music artists to take a cue from hip hop and battle their way to the top of the music charts - insisting his peers have the talent to become as legendary as the Beatles.

The rapper took the stage to accept his award for Favourite Rap/Hip-Hop Album, in a first-time category at the 2008 American Music Awards on Sunday (23Nov08).

In his first win at the award show he told the crowd, "I want to thank everybody who accepted me trying to break new boundaries in music. I wake up in the morning and just think about what stereotypes I want to break and we push the envelope with the last album, with Stronger, with records they thought wouldn't play on urban radio.

They say in any other industry, you're supposed to do better than the past. Like computers should get smaller and faster but whenever you say you want to be Elvis, they say, 'What's wrong with you?' But I don't want to be Elvis.

"And it's our responsibility as musicians to keep pushing each other and keep competing with each other. It's a really great competition. I see artists like Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Rihanna, Chris Brown, Chris Martin all in the dame music.

And we're going to push music to the point where it was like in the 60s in the 70s where you talk about Led Zeppelin and Hendrix and the Beatles - we will be the new Beatles, the new Hendrix."

But despite West's conviction he and his peers will break new boundaries in music, the rapper insists he's not out to mimic legendary artists of the past.

He adds, "They say in any other industry, you're supposed to do better than the past. Like computers should get smaller and faster but whenever you say you want to be Elvis, they say, 'What's wrong with you?' But I don't want to be Elvis.".

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