Days before he took the stage as the first musical guest of Saturday Night Live’s 44th season, Kanye West popped up in promos for the show wearing his red “Make America Great Again” hat. The official Trump paraphernalia didn’t feature into his first two performances as musical guest Saturday night, nor did viewers get what could have been an alternatively hilarious or deeply awkward sketch in which he could come face-to-face with Alec Baldwin’s Trump.
But when West, who officially changed his name to Ye on Twitter earlier in the day, came out for the goodnights, the hat was back. After host Adam Driver and the rest of the cast left the stage, West was joined by Kid Cudi and 070 Shake for a rare third performance to close the show.
They performed “Ghost Town” from his recent album, also called Ye, and notably West took the verse that usually belongs to PartyNextDoor and includes the line, “Some days, not gonna please everybody.” As he rapped the line, “This ain’t what they had in mind,” he pointed directly to those four words on his red hat.
“We’re still the kids we used to be,” all three sang in unison near the end of the song, but it was hard not to miss how far he’s come from his hallowed performance of “Runaway” in an Eddie Murphy-esque red leather suit, surrounded by ballet dancers in tutus on SNL just eight years ago.
