Why do so many people hate Kanye West?

More than 50,000 people have signed a petition to stop hip-hop superstar Kanye West from performing at the Pan Am Games closing ceremony in Toronto on Sunday. They say organizers should have chosen a Canadian act and shouldn't be supporting such an arrogant and talent-less performer. And this isn't the first time unhappy music fans have tried to get West kicked off the stage. Just last month, a petition was circulating to prevent him from headlining at England's Glastonbury Festival.

West is no stranger to controversy, but why exactly does he get under people's skin so much? Is he getting unfairly criticized for the same things rock n' roll stars have been doing for years?

Warning: some viewers may find the language in this video offensive.

We hear two perspectives: a supporter of the petition, and someone who says hating on West is unwarranted.

Mark Daye is the Deputy Leader of the Green Party of Ontario and he supports the push to have Kanye removed from the closing ceremony. 

Joshua Ostroff is a Senior Editor at Huffington Post Canada and he penned an article defending West and his wife Kim Kardashian.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Mark Daye, this week on Twitter you called Kanye West an "obnoxious, no talent, a-hole". Why do you feel so strongly about Kanye West?

Mark Daye: I suppose the tweet does imply that I feel very strongly about him, I really don't. It was sort of an off-the-cuff moment. He is very egotistical, I don't think he's the right choice for the Pan Am Games. I don't feel that he embodies the spirit of the games. They are promoted as an amateur event to highlight the best in sport. I think the arts and culture portion of it could do a similar thing and highlight up-and-coming talent rather than somebody who's already established. He's a multimillionaire, he's won a lot of awards. There are lots and lots of artists. Perhaps somebody that is maybe famous in another part of the world that we aren't aware of right now.

So the argument that some people are making that this should be a Canadian artist, that doesn't go for you, that's not your take?

MD: I don't think that's necessary, no. I know a lot of people were mentioning Drake as an example. There are certainly lots of artists and again my stance is that it could be somebody who's not perhaps as well known as Drake.

Drake's not exactly known for being a shy wallflower himself when it comes to ego though, right?

MD: True, this is true.

A lot of artists have big egos. You call Kanye obnoxious in that tweet, but John Lennon said The Beatles were bigger than Jesus. How is Kanye any different from him?

MD: I just feel it's his attitude, like the Taylor Swift thing. The clip of him at a concert telling everybody to stand up or he wasn't going to continue, that for me was a big one. And then you see this guy waving his artificial leg and then Kanye gives him a pass. Really?

Tell us more about that one.

MD: Well, he was doing a show and he just stopped and said he wasn't going to continue the show until everybody was standing up. First of all, if I buy a ticket to a show, if I don't want to stand up I'm not going to stand up. But if somebody can't stand up, they can't stand up.

I think the public is a little harder on rap artists...- Mark Daye, Deputy Leader of the Green Party of Ontario 

Do you think there's a double standard for rappers?

MD: Possibly. I do think race comes into play, absolutely.

How so?

MD: Race comes into play in everything and if we don't admit that then I think we're just lying to ourselves. I think the public is a little harder on rap artists because a lot of them are black and that's why I see race coming into it.

You also talk about his lack of talent in that tweet, you said he's a "no-talent." This is a guy who consistently tops 'best of' lists. Lou Reed called him great and said that the album Yeezus was "majestic and inspiring." We've seen him collaborate with Paul McCartney, Alicia Keys, and many others. How do you think he's got no talent?

MD: That's my opinion. I'm not a fan of his music, that I have heard. I don't care for it. My son who's in his early 20s listens to hip-hop music a lot and is not a fan. So it's not just myself.

Have you listened to an album of his?

MD: Not a full album, no.

Just a few songs?

MD: Yes.

Can you name a song?

MD: No, I can't.

So you're really not a fan?

MD: I'm really not a fan. I listen to a lot of different genres, hip-hop is admittedly not one of my favourites.

You represent a political party. So why decide to speak up on this particular issue?

MD: We speak up on a lot of issues. They don't necessarily get picked up and I don't get invited to come and speak on the radio about it. Unfortunately that's just the world we live in. This happened to be something that was popular. I wouldn't say I regret the tweet.

Kanye is not really what I would call a good sport, so he does not embody the spirit of the games.- Mark Daye, Deputy Leader of the Green Party of Ontario 

But does it reflect your true feelings?

MD: Oh yeah, absolutely. It's more about the game organizers than Kanye. We see this with the Olympics, we see this with FIFA. These big sporting events that are supposed to be about sportsmanship and all these wonderful good feeling things, they're really about business at the end of the day. Kanye doesn't need another moment in the spotlight frankly. It's a lot more about money than it is about good sportsmanship. And Kanye is not really what I would call a good sport, so he does not embody the spirit of the games.

Joshua Ostroff, we just heard Mark Daye say that Kanye West doesn't embody the spirit of the Pan Am Games and that he is just not a good sport. Doesn't Mark make a fair point?

Joshua Ostroff: Well, what's interesting is that the issue that he brings up about Taylor Swift -- and there was also the Beck incident at the Grammys -- that wasn't Kanye saying that he personally deserves something. In both cases it was for Beyoncé. West just seems to be particularly obsessed with fairness and justice and that goes across the board. In fact he's won numerous awards that he felt were undeserving and he's given them to other people. Lil Wayne had a better year so he's like "Last year this would have been mine. Maybe next year we'll see, but this should be yours this year."

There's a certain category of people in this world who think that unless it's a folk and rock derived musical form, with guitars and instruments, that it's not really music.- Joshua Ostroff, Senior Editor of Huffington Post Canada

But haven't there been enough of these incidents where he's embarrassed other people, including Beyoncé, by doing this? That means that he just comes across as arrogant, that he doesn't set the right tone for a sporting event like the Pan Am Games?

JO: He certainly has no filter. Remember Mike Myers' face when he said "George Bush doesn't care about black people"? He's really big on telling what he thinks is the truth. And ultimately a lot of these situations, what he's saying when you take away how he says it, is often right.

Mark Daye also called Kanye a "no talent." There are certainly a lot of allegations that he depends on auto-tune. What do you make of that?

JO: Well, that shows a fundamental misunderstanding of hip-hop. The people that tend to call him no talent also don't think that hip-hop is music. There's a certain category of people in this world who think that unless it's a folk and rock derived musical form, with guitars and instruments, that it's not really music. With auto-tune he's not using it to improve his voice and trick people like say Britney Spears would do. He's using it as a tool in the same way that people use a guitar pedal or a vocoder in the '70's. The other thing about his kind of braggadocio is that it's a part of hip-hop. A lot of this stuff came out of rap battles where people are competing to make the most elaborate boasts and the most elaborate insults.

So how much might this be a misunderstanding or a misappreciation of hip-hop? How much might this be about race and class?

JO: Those two things are tied together considering hip-hop is a predominantly black art form. The other predominantly black art forms like rock 'n' roll and jazz are no longer predominantly black. It's not just that people don't like Kanye, people hate Kanye. If you read the comments on my article the intense animosity that people have towards him, there's definitely racial undertones. Regardless of what he says, he's a paragon of virtue. He's never been arrested, he's never gone to rehab, as far as we know he has never cheated on his wife. He has never done any of the things that we've celebrated white rock stars for doing.

There's a certain political act with black self-love that people don't quite understand.- Joshua Ostroff, Senior Editor of Huffington Post Canada

Let's take a listen to this from Kanye's Grammy Award nominated song New Slaves. What's he trying to say there?

JO: The song is predominantly about a kind of materialistic trap that people fall into when they try to follow the American dream and that he was discovered as a black celebrity who's kind of succumbed to this. That they're encouraged to get rich and then spend all their money and then they just become trapped by it. But he's also taking on haters because they just don't understand where he's coming from. We were talking about arrogance. There's a certain thing about his arrogance that really rubs people the wrong way.

And a word that people don't use, but that the Guardian used when describing this kind of unreasonable hatred towards him is 'uppity.' That he's a black person who doesn't know his place, he doesn't act grateful for being where he is. And there's a certain political act with black self-love that people don't quite understand. Look at Muhammad Ali, there's something powerful about showing people that you do love yourself. But if you're coming from a place of privilege where you can be self-deprecating it's different than when you're trying to communicate to your fans that they should love themselves, they should be proud of themselves and who they are.

Can you not like his music and it be because you don't like it? Does it necessarily mean you have to be doing it from a racist perspective?

JO: Of course not. Mostly what I was talking about was the really over-the-top hatred and the problems with him doing things that people don't have problems with other people doing. Jimmy Page was just here in town and everybody loves him. But Jimmy Page was a terrible human being in the '70's and did terrible things to groupies and everybody's fine with that. Whereas Kanye just stole Taylor Swift's moment in the sun.

So do you think it's real, that it reflects who he really is or it's part of the act?

JO: I think it's a combination. I think he thinks he's a genius. Musically, I also think he's a genius. The production that he does himself, which is rare in hip-hop. He doesn't just sell millions of records, he doesn't just get critically acclaimed, he doesn't just win a ton of awards.He does all three of those things and that is a rarity in this time. So for anybody to say that he's not talented is kind of absurd. His live performances, for example - when he came here on the Yeezus tour there was a mountain and Jesus came down off the mountain.  At one point he was on an iceberg in the middle of the arena singing a song about his mom, yes with auto tune, and it literally started snowing inside the arena. There's an ambition to what he's trying to do that other people in pop music just aren't even trying. It's just that the haters are really loud.