Love him or don’t connect with his art and mostly find him intolerable, rapper Kanye West was crowned artist of the year by the 2016 Webby Awards on Tuesday.
As the Webbys wrote via a blog: “A leader and innovator in the music industry, Kanye is changing the cultural paradigm of how music is shared, released, presented, & consumed.”
It’s an unimpeachable assertion, given that his Life of Pablo album was streamed a reported 250 million times via subscription music service Tidal during its first 10 days online.
Sure, he was later sued by an angry fan because the record eventually made its way to free streaming service Spotify, but the Tidal exclusive felt special for a solid month, didn’t it? Lest we forget, people wanted to hear this thing so badly that, in countries without Tidal, people made their own versions of Pablo.
Webby winners will be presented during a ceremony in New York City on May 16—with a livestream to follow the next day. Now in its 20th year, the awards received close to 13,000 entries from more than 70 countries.
West will reportedly be on hand to accept his hardware, and you can still vote on categories such as GIF of the year on the Webbys site.
H/T Stereogum