Grammys' decision to ban Kanye West from performing was the right institutional move for Kanye’s own sake

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"The Grammys’ decision is by no means some remarkable ethical stand: people who have done far worse things have been invited onto the Grammys stage throughout the years," says Brandon Yu. "But the Recording Academy has to draw the line with Kanye in particular due to his sheer unpredictability when it comes to having a mic in his hand on music’s biggest night, not to mention the fact that his dust-up online that resulted in his one-day Instagram ban was with this year’s Grammys host Trevor Noah. The decision is simply a preemptive damage control measure (and also telling that in the calculus for the Grammys, which has struggled to fight for their waning relevance, his chaos outweighed the viewership and publicity that a Kanye stunt would have naturally gifted them). Yet it also happens to be the right institutional move for Kanye’s own sake. There is a subtext to jeen-yuhs, Netflix’s recent, fascinating three-part documentary that mostly tracks his early rise, that Kanye has truly been warped and trapped by his gargantuan fame."