At a concert in New York this week, Grammy Award-winning rapper and record producer Kanye West spoke out on stage against homophobia and rumours that he's gay. Battling homophobia: Kanye West "Open your fucking minds. Be accepting of different people and let people be who they are," the Touch the Sky singer advised his fans. "You know how many people came to me calling me gay ‘cause I wear my jeans the fresh way? Or because I said hey, dude, how you gonna say 'fag' right in front of a gay dude's face and act like that's ok. That shit is disrespectful," he continued. "Coming from Chicago, where if you saw somebody that was gay you were supposed to stay ten feet away. It should be time to break out of the intuitions that I was sayin', the stereotypes, or the fear, the backlash that I would get if you don't believe in what I believe in, acceptin' people for who they are... they're very talented and if they do something special in the world and they're discriminated. I've flown across the world y'all, and I've come back here to tell you — open your minds and live a happier life..." West has previously spoken out against hip-hop homophobia, telling the UK's Manchester Evening News last year: "Being in the entertainment world, I meet so many different gay people who are actually nice people. Where I came from, Chicago, being black and being a hip-hop artist, we used to really disrespect gay people. And the thing is, we can't get close to them with a 10-foot pole. And I realised, 'wow, how ignorant has this been?'" A video clip of Kayne West's address to fans at his concert is shown below. The quoted section begins around 1:45” into the clip.