Kanye
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈkɑnjeɪ/
ipa: /ˈkænjeɪ/
ipa: /ˈkɑːnjeɪ/
rhymes: -ɑːnjeɪ
Forms: form: Kanyes
form: Kanyeing
form: Kanye'd
form: Kanye'd
form: Kanyed
form: Kanyed
Etymology: Evidently from Igbo Kanye, although inspiration from other African languages may have contributed. The verb is a reference to Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift’s speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.
Senses: examples: text: Taylor sings her monologue song on Saturday Night Live with Bill Hader (left) and Jason Sudeikis (right) making sure she doesn’t get Kanye’d again.
ref: 2010, Liv Spencer, Taylor Swift: Every Day Is a Fairytale – The Unofficial Story, Toronto, Ont.: ECW Press, →ISBN, page 146:
text: In what probably put his film on the map more than winning the Oscar itself, the short documentary winner Roger Ross Williams got Kanye’d when accepting his award for “Music by Prudence.” As Mr. Williams, the director, was making his speech, Elinor Burkett, the producer, jumped onstage with him and began talking over him, shades of Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift at the Video Music Awards last year.
ref: 2010 March 8, Melena Ryzik, The Carpetbagger (The New York Times), archived from the original on 17 Mar 2023:
text: Author’s note: Possibly one in the form of a very short rapper with extreme attention and small man issues who interrupts and insults you during high points of your life, ruins your train of thought, accuses some white guy of not caring about black guys, yells “YOU’VE JUST BEEN KANYE’D!” laughs maniacally, and then scampers off to create more havoc elsewhere.
ref: 2011, Nathan Andrew Roberts, “The Perfect Chapter”, in Randomedy: Novels with Structure, Organization, Fluidity, Cohesion, and Clarity Are for Losers, Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 43:
text: You Got Kanyed: Seen but Not Heard
ref: 2014, David J. Leonard, “You Got Kanyed: Seen but Not Heard”, in Julius Bailey, editor, The Cultural Impact of Kanye West, Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN, page 45:
text: Kanye’d from Kanye West (b. 1977) meaning to have a speech interrupted.
ref: [2015, Bruce M. Rowe, Diane P. Levine, A Concise Introduction to Linguistics, 4th edition, London; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, published 2016, →ISBN, page 98:
text: To Swiftly tackle the Taylor debacle / What if he had tossed her a $mirk / When he hi-jacked the VMA mic on that historic MTV night? / Even President Obama said that he behaved like a jerk. / But was Kanye right for saying what he had said? / What if he had simply flashed her a Kanye smile instead? / Mollified Molly with it like a pillow on a bed / Hypnotized her / Kanyed her / Got in her head, / Simply slipped her a Kanye smile like a micky among her meds.
ref: 2018, Nadine Judith Lynch, From the Mind of the Supermassive Black Hole, Bloomington, Ind.: iUniverse, →ISBN:
text: Ironically, this attempt to steal his thunder gave him even more publicity when news outlets publicized how the more Black director, Williams, was “‘Kanye’d’ by Burkett” (McDonald 2016).
ref: 2022, Rebecca Bell-Metereau, “Life, Animated: Adapting a Book about a Hero with Autism”, in Murray Pomerance, R. Barton Palmer, editors, Autism in Film and Television: On the Island, Austin, Tex.: University of Texas Press, →ISBN:
text: After a few more speeches and several moments of self-reflection the woman who made the remarks—or better yet Kanye’d me during my speech—I walked up and started a conversation.
ref: 2022, Boni Wozolek, editor, Black Lives Matter in US Schools: Race, Education, and Resistance, Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, →ISBN:
text: A few seconds into her performance she can be seen in the video getting interrupted by a fellow student, who grabbed the microphone out of Valerio’s hand saying “This is my senior graduating class and I think I deserve to sing the national anthem.” This shocked the judges. ”She just pulled a Kanye West!” Katy Perry said, referring to West stealing the microphone during Taylor Swift’s 2009 acceptance speech for Best Video by a Female Artist at the MTV Music Awards. ”She got Kanyed,” Luke Bryan added.
ref: 2023 March 13, Taylor Sanzo, “‘American Idol’: Luke Bryan tells contestant she ‘got Kanyed’”, in MassLive, archived from the original on 13 Mar 2023:
glosses: To interrupt the speech of (someone).
examples: text: Roger Ross Williams hopes "God Loves Uganda" will give him another shot at an acceptance speech after his first was "Kanye'd" by a disgruntled collaborator.
ref: 2013 October 30, Chris O'Falt, “Documentarian Ambushed at Oscars Returns With Film on Africa’s Deadly Anti-Gay Campaigns”, in The Hollywood Reporter, archived from the original on 27 Nov 2021:
text: The G.O.O.D. Music founder may have had a smile on his face when he almost Kanyed Beck's Album of the Year acceptance speech at the Grammys last night — and Beyoncé was laughing when she said "No Kanye, no" from the audience — but his crashing of the stage was no joke.
ref: 2015 February 8, Evelyn Diaz, “Kanye West Pretends to Storm the Stage at Grammy Awards”, in BET, archived from the original on 06 Oct 2023:
text: Third, when Jay-Z interrupted West at the 2012 BET Awards, and when West repeated his interruption at the 2015 Grammys, they were enacting memetic performances, referencing, replicating, and escalating an embodied behavior for collective appreciation. Alas, others have not widely joined in, and no “Kanyeing” trend has taken off.
ref: 2016, Ryan M. Milner, The World Made Meme: Public Conversations and Participatory Media, Cambridge, Mass.; London: The MIT Press, →ISBN, page 18:
text: James Corden took the stage with his team. Naturally, I jumped up, ripped the mic out of his hand, and Kanye’d that shit.
ref: 2022, Randy Rainbow, Playing with Myself, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin’s Griffin, →ISBN:
glosses: To interrupt (a speech).