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There were chaotic scenes on the streets of New York City in the early hours of Monday following Kanye West’s tweet that he planned to perform an impromptu show at Webster Hall in the East Village.
When Yeezy’s scheduled gig at the Governor’s Ball Music Festival was cancelled due to bad weather, the rapper decided he wasn’t going to let Mother Nature stop him from sharing songs from his new album Cruel Winter with fans. So he headed to Hot 97’s Summer Jam festival in New Jersey where he performed a surprise set, and West’s creative director Virgil Abloh revealed that Kanye would do a show (in a since-edited Instagram caption) at 2AM at Webster Hall.
Just after 1AM Yeezy seemed to confirm the gig, tweeting that the concert was “sold out”. Around the same time, Kim Kardashian posted a video on Snapchat showing her husband apparently on the phone to an assistant, asking them to call NYC mayor Bill de Blasio to shut down some streets around Webster Hall.
“Call the mayor and shut down the block about four streets and put up screens so they can have a party outside,” he says. “I know it’s sold out already.”
Cue thousands rushing to Webster Hall causing near riot-like scenes as people climbed onto scaffolding or parked cars to get above the crushing crowd.
But police and officials from Webster Hall soon shut down any hopes the estimated 4000 people had of seeing Kanye perform, announcing over megaphones that the show had been cancelled and that everyone should go home. But anyone who was still there about half an hour later got quite the treat – the rapper arrived in a car and stood up through the vehicle’s sunroof to see the scene he’d caused.
The next morning Kim took to Twitter to explain that her husband really wanted to do the gig, but it just wasn’t possible.
“Last night was crazy! Kanye wished he could have performed last night!!!
“He really tried so hard but it was ultimately out of his control! He has the best fans in the whole world!
“Thank you all for coming out at 2am. Promise he will make up this pop up show.”
The biggest takeaway from all this is undoubtedly that Kim Kardashian really is essential on social media, whether you like it or not.
