Music

Kanye West auditions for American Idol

by Jeremy Mersereau

It’s nerve-wracking enough performing in front of Obama… but what about singing for, and possibly getting brutally criticized by, Harry Connick Jr, Jennifer Lopez, and Keith Urban in the same week? That’s just what superstar rapper/presidential candidate/ego-fueled automaton Kanye West did in the past seven days.

Just days after performing at a Democratic National Committee fundraising event in San Francisco (and getting roasted by Obama in the process), Kanye made a surprise appearance on the set of American Idol, where he auditioned for the show’s panel of celebrity judges with a bit of his 2005 hit, “Gold Digger”.

The episode is as of yet unaired, and all we have to go on is some kind of control room feed recorded off a camera phone, but I’m going to go ahead and say that Kanye passed the audition with flying colours, and got his golden ticket to the next stage of the competition… especially since photos later surfaced of West holding a golden ticket.

Here’s Kanye with Ryan Seacrest, who’s cheering on the rapper in typically reserved, totally un-sycophantic fashion. They should go as Chester and Spike for Halloween.