Ye’s made some unforgettable SNL moments over the years, and now a new Peacock doc celebrating the show’s 50th anniversary is diving into his impact – including that wild 2018 MAGA speech during the Yandhi era.
The two-hour special Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music, directed by Questlove and Oz Rodriguez, looks back at Ye’s multiple SNL appearances, starting with his 2005 performance of “Touch the Sky” from Late Registration.
Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine credits Ye for changing how artists design their SNL sets, saying before him, “you always played in front of the brick wall.” Barry creator and former SNL writer Bill Hader remembers Ye being “nice but really contentious” with the show’s crew.
“He had no problem telling us that he found the show incredibly unfunny,” Hader recalled with a laugh. “He would tell us that on the regular.”
After showing a clip of Ye getting heated about lighting in 2016, the doc jumps to September 2018. By then, Ye was deep into his MAGA phase, rocking the red hat in promos and during the show.
“Oh yeah, that is a MAGA hat, huh?” veteran cast member Kenan Thompson says in footage before filming a promo with host Adam Driver and Ye. “I’m just now putting that together.”
As fans might remember, the show’s usual goodnight segment went off the rails when Ye launched into a half-sung rant about “the liberals” who “bully you.” He talked about “monolithic thought” and used Trump’s 2016 win as inspiration for his own White House dreams. (Four years later, Ye would praise Hitler during a masked interview with Alex Jones.)
“I was like, I don’t wanna be up here for this because I don’t agree with this and standing up here seems like I’m standing in solidarity,” current SNL star Ego Nwodim shared in the doc. Her first year on the show coincided with Ye’s MAGA drama. “So I was like, don’t make any faces. Neutral face, neutral face. Everyone’s gotta know I’m just fulfilling my duties as a cast member. It’s like your first day of school and you’re like, I don’t wanna get in trouble.”
During Ye’s extended post-show speech, which only partly made it to TV, Nwodim remembers scanning the stage for “other Black people up here.” Her discovery? Zero.
“I was the only one,” she revealed. “Then I thought, they had a meeting. So then I’m like, these motherfuckers.”
Kenan Thompson saw the signs and bounced quick.
“When he grabbed the mic and was just like, you know, wandering around, you could see he was gearing up to say something,” Thompson, who’s talked about this moment several times since, explained in the doc. “I was like, I’m out. It would have been cool if he just did the music thing and, I don’t know, spoke through the hat, I guess. Because the hat was loud.”
Steve Higgins, former SNL co-head writer and current Tonight Show regular, noted that SNL has always been a “non-censoring show,” except for curse words.
“No one’s stopping anybody from doing anything,” he pointed out.
You can catch the full doc on Peacock now. Meanwhile, Ye’s getting ready to drop his first solo album since 2021’s Donda. His upcoming project Bully, which he’s been teasing all over social media lately, should hit sometime this year.
