Is Kanye’s 7-minute speech on ‘The Ellen Show’ his Tom Cruise moment?

Kanye West is, in the opinion of many, one of the finest artists and musicians of our generation.

He has released eight albums in the last 12 years, several of which could comfortably be called classics. Nevertheless, the rapper has hit a weird phase in his life and in his career where he has become far better known for outbursts on Twitter and radical opinions on why he's struggling to succeed in the fashion industry than he is for his music. West, who is of course married to Kim Kardashian, appeared on The Ellen Show yesterday, and his conversation with host Ellen Degeneres might actually trump Tom Cruise jumping up and down on Oprah's couch in 2005. https://twitter.com/WHITNEYH0UST0N/status/733553089723043840 In his conversation with Ellen, West gives incoherent answers to her questions, swears abundantly and jumps out of his seat and proclaims "Ye is in the building! Put your motherf*cking hands in the air right now!" before sitting back down as if nothing had happened. Kanye then stares into the middle distance, utterly ignoring Ellen, to say:

"Picasso is dead. Steve Jobs is dead. Name somebody living that you can mention in the same breath as them. Don't tell me about being likeable."

https://twitter.com/TannerStechnij/status/733561294096203776 It is clear that his heart is in the right place as he talks at length about the importance of people not tearing each other down and how he'd like to "take away bullying", but it's impossible to avoid the sense that West is almost too passionate about his cause to communicate clearly. https://twitter.com/kayloveskimk/status/733547225389797383 West also offers a valuable take on the #OscarsSoWhite scandal from earlier in the year, saying that it "ain't no joke" - but as soon as he says this he seems to get side-tracked by lyrics from Eric B. & Rakim's 'Ain't No Joke' which he proceeded to quote a few lyrics from that didn't exactly seem to fit the context. Last night, all Kanye had to say  on the matter was this: https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/733371181512990722 You can watch the full video here: