Chapter 574: Criticizing Kanye West, Writing a Single
The Suns' 15 man roster for the new season was officially set.
Centers: Amare Stoudemire, DeAndre Jordan, Robert Dozier
Power Forwards: Boris Diaw, Matt Barnes, Steve Novak
Small Forwards: Grant Hill, Danny Green, Alando Tucker
Shooting Guards: Chen Yan, Raja Bell, Jason Terry
Point Guards: Steve Nash, Barea, Jason Williams
The depth of this roster was astonishing. Excluding the 2 rookies and 2 end of bench players, 11 players were fully capable of contributing in real games.
Even more shocking, this championship level roster still would not trigger the luxury tax.
Most people credited Chen Yan for that. As the reigning MVP, he was still on his rookie contract, which saved the Suns a massive amount of salary space.
On August 7, Chen Yan made a public appearance at his pizza shop and immediately drew a huge crowd. At this point, his face alone was the best advertisement possible.
By August, Chen Yan still had countless commercial commitments.
There were moments when he felt physically and mentally drained. Sometimes he even wished he could skip the entire off season and jump straight into the new season.
Unfortunately, life was not a game. There was no skip button.
The only comfort he had was that every appearance meant more money in his account.
By September, his schedule finally eased a little.
He used that rare free time to prepare a new song for Taylor Swift.
He had promised her that for a long time, and only now did he finally have a chance to make good on it.
On September 13, Chen Yan accompanied Taylor Swift to the MTV Video Music Awards.
The moment the two stepped onto the red carpet, the cameras nearly exploded. Flash after flash lit up the venue.
Both of them were already incredibly famous across America.
Chen Yan was the newly crowned MVP and one of the biggest stars in sports. Taylor Swift was the brightest rising star in American music in 2009.
That year, the American Music Awards honored her with Favorite Country Female Artist and Artist of the Year. Even before 2009 had fully ended, Taylor Swift had already become one of the most talked about names in the industry. If people were naming the most important figures in American pop music that year, aside from the late Michael Jackson, Taylor Swift would absolutely be on that list.
As a couple, the two were also widely seen as America's golden boy and golden girl, one dominating basketball, the other taking over the music world.
The ceremony began soon after.
Chen Yan and Taylor Swift sat hand in hand among the audience. When the camera found them, they smiled and waved, casually showing their affection even in the middle of the awards show.
Madonna opened the night with a tribute to the recently departed King of Pop, Michael Jackson.
Next came Katy Perry's performance.
After their earlier friction, Taylor Swift and Katy Perry had kept their distance, and there was still no interaction between them that night.
Then the award segment began.
The first major category was Best Female Video.
The presenters were actor Taylor Lautner and Latin superstar Shakira. Together they read the list of nominees, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Kelly Clarkson, Beyoncé, and Pink.
It was a stacked category, full of major names.
Beyoncé was widely seen as the favorite.
But a few seconds later, the presenters announced the winner.
"Taylor Swift!"
The crowd burst into applause.
Chen Yan stood up at once and hugged Taylor. Taylor Swift herself looked stunned. Even she seemed to have trouble believing she had just beaten so many established stars.
Chen Yan leaned close and whispered a few words of encouragement, urging her to go onstage.
Excited and a little nervous, Taylor walked up to accept the trophy.
But just as she raised the microphone and began to speak, a tall black figure suddenly rushed onto the stage.
The camera quickly zoomed in.
It was Kanye West.
What happened next left the entire audience frozen.
Kanye grabbed the moment and declared that Beyoncé's video was the real best video, implying that Taylor Swift had stolen the award.
The whole venue went silent.
Even Beyoncé covered her mouth in shock.
Taylor stood there completely stunned, her expression caught between embarrassment and disbelief.
Then the crowd reacted.
A wave of boos crashed through the arena.
At that point, Kanye's behavior could no longer be described as rude. It was outright humiliating.
What happened next stunned the audience even more.
Chen Yan stood up and strode onto the stage.
He snatched the microphone directly out of Kanye's hand, exactly the way Kanye had just tried to snatch the moment from Taylor.
Kanye might have looked imposing in front of Taylor Swift, but in front of Chen Yan he instantly shrank. His build meant nothing when he was only 173 centimeters tall. The arrogance he had displayed a moment earlier vanished almost immediately.
Chen Yan stared at him coldly.
"How does it feel to have the microphone ripped away from you? How does it feel to be disrespected?" he said. "You think you're being real. You think you're speaking your truth. You think that makes you cool. But do you know what you look like to everyone else right now? A clown with no manners and no sense of boundaries."
The moment he finished, the boos turned into thunderous applause.
Chen Yan had said exactly what everyone in the room wanted to say.
After that chaotic interruption, the rest of the performances almost stopped mattering. The entire awards show became centered on the incident at the MTV Video Music Awards.
Chen Yan once again shot to the top of the headlines, becoming the focus of discussion across America.
The incident caused an enormous stir.
Still, Chen Yan did not regret it for even a second.
As a man, there was no way he could stand by and watch his woman get humiliated in public.
Some fans argued that Chen Yan had only released 2 singles, was not a serious musician, and therefore had no right to criticize Kanye.
Several black rappers even released diss tracks aimed at him, openly standing on Kanye's side.
But many more people understood exactly why he had done it.
They felt he was protective, direct, and justified. Those were the normal ones.
A number of NBA players and celebrities also publicly backed him.
Iverson said, "I don't know why Kanye did that. It was disrespectful to a lady. If it happened in front of me, I'd probably do the same thing Chen did."
Durant said, "He did the right thing. That's how it should be. Why not?"
Stoudemire was even more blunt. "Why didn't he punch him?"
Scarlett Johansson, who had recently filmed Iron Man with Chen Yan, said in an interview, "He went onstage to protect his girlfriend. That's fantastic. If I had a boyfriend like that, I'd feel very safe. I'm proud of him."
Robert Downey Jr. also weighed in. "I don't know every detail, so I won't comment too much. But as a man, I don't think there's anything wrong with protecting your girlfriend when she's being attacked."
2 weeks later, Chen Yan's single for Taylor Swift, "Mean," was officially released.
In truth, in another life, that song had originally been written and composed by Taylor Swift herself in 2010. This time, Chen Yan had shamelessly borrowed it in advance.
When Taylor first heard it, she was genuinely surprised.
"Oh my God," she said. "This song feels so familiar to me. It's like... it's like I wrote it myself. It's such a strange feeling."
Chen Yan only smiled and said nothing.
Of course it felt familiar. In another timeline, it had been hers all along.
The song itself was a response to malicious criticism. It expressed the belief that no matter who a person is, what they do, how old they are, or what kind of work they pursue, there will always be people who judge them harshly. In the end, those judgments are something each person has to face and overcome on their own.
Once the song came out, many fans immediately interpreted it as a subtle response to Kanye.
Its popularity rose almost overnight.
People praised Chen Yan as a musical genius, amazed that he could produce something so strong in such a short period of time. Beyond that, many also started calling him a marketing genius, believing he had cleverly turned the conflict into the perfect promotional wave for the song.
In reality, Chen Yan had not planned it that way at all.
Writing a single for Taylor Swift had been on his schedule since the very start of the off season.
.....
[If you don't want to wait for the next update, read 50 chapters ahead on P@treon.]
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