Kanye West: Road to the BET Awards

The last year has been one of the biggest of Yeezy's career.

Kanye West - Music’s finest have been spied out and about rocking a fly crop of leather tops. From Kanye West to Chris Brown to Kendrick Lamar, these 15 dapper fellas show us how to pull leather off the right way. Among the first to embrace the fashion-forward style, Mr. West commands the crowd donning leather on top of leather on top of leather. Fresh. By Metanoya Z. Webb (photo: Maxppp /Landov)

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Kanye West: Road to the BET Awards 2012 - Boom. That's the sound of the big breaking news that Kanye West is performing at the 2012 BET Awards. It's a surprise, yes, but it really shouldn't be. The last year has been one of the biggest of Yeezy's legendary career — celebrating with an amazing performance onstage at the BET Awards is only appropriate. Click on to follow Kanye's road to the 2012 BET Awards.  (Photo: Maxppp/Landov)

Soundtrack of 2011 — Watch the Throne - Jay plus Kanye, need we say more? From the first single, "H.A.M.," which added a new phrase to the urban dictionary, the summer banger, “Otis” (and the much-talked about chopped up Maybach in the song’s video), to the album's current chart-topping track “N---as in Paris”, W.T.T. was a true hip hop masterpiece. These heavy weights put everyone on notice that Jigga and Ye are still running this town. (Photo: Courtesy of Roc-A-Fella Records)

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Kanye West: Road to the BET Awards - In August, 'Ye and Jay dropped the bombastic Watch the Throne album. Critics approved big time, and so did fans — the album broke the record for most sales in a week on the U.S. iTunes store. (Photo: Courtesy Roc-A-Fella Records)

The Throne - Jay-Z's and Kanye West's kingly duo is set to rule over the BET Awards with a whopping five nominations: two for Video of the Year (for "Otis" and "Paris"), one for Best Group, one for Best Collaboration (for "Otis"), and one for the Coca-Cola Viewers' Choice Award (for "Otis").(Photo: Kyle Gustafson/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)

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Kanye West: Road to the BET Awards - Kanye and Jay boosted the album with an amazing tour across the States and Europe, featuring bananas stage visuals and all their classics, both individually and together.(Photo: Kyle Gustafson/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Jay-Z & Kanye West (The Throne), " N----s in Paris" - Featuring dueling vocal snippets from 'Ye and Jay, the anthemic "N----s in Paris" had the whole world balling so hard and going cray. (Photo: ROC Nation)

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Kanye West: Road to the BET Awards  - Kanye and Hov immortalized the Watch the Throne tour by using footage from it for the stunning video for "N----s in Paris" — a perfect choice, considering they closed each show with a repeat, three-peat, four-peat (and sometimes more) encore performance of the anthem.     (Photo: Courtesy ROC Nation)

Kanye West (@kanyewest) - TWEET: "We need to take what Michael Jackson felt and [Alexander] Mcqueen and Steve Jobs and we need make things better..." Kanye West gave followers justification for pressing the spam button on his tweets after he went on a three hour, 80 tweet tirade about everything under the sun from financial empowerment to ideas on how to fix the American school system.(Photo: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images)

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Kanye West: Road to the BET Awards - In January, Kanye announced that he was starting a new collective of creatives and developers named DONDA, after his late mother. "I am assembling a team of architects, graphic designers, directors, musicians, producers, A&Rs, writers, publicist, social media experts, app guys, managers, car designers, clothing designers, DJs, video game designers, publishers, tech guys, lawyers, bankers, nutritionist, doctors, scientist, teachers,” he wrote via Twitter. “We want to help simplify and aesthetically improve everything we see hear, touch, taste and feel...We need to pick up where Steve Jobs left off.”(Photo: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images)

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Theraflu - In classic Kanye fashion, the rapper expressed his feelings for Kim in 2012 on his new track "Theraflu," revealing the lyrics "and I'll admit, I fell in love with Kim 'round the same time she had fell in love wit' him. Well, that's cool, baby girl, do ya thing," in reference to Kim's relationship with Kris Humphries.The next day, Kim responded during a Today show interview, saying, "Kanye and I have been friends for years, and you never know what the future holds or where my life will take me. I like the song."(Photo: Def Jam Records)

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Kanye West: Road to the BET Awards - But the lofty plans didn't mean Kanye had forgotten his bread and butter: making dope music. In April, Yeezy leaked "Theraflu" — later retitled "Way Too Cold" to avoid a fat lawsuit — reportedly the first single from the upcoming GOOD Music compilation. The song caused quite a stir, and not just because of Hit-Boy's kinetic, electro beat: In the song, Kanye confessed his love for Kim Kardashian. (Photo: Courtesy Def Jam Records)

So in Like - Kim Kardashian and Kanye West were spotted canoodling courtside before the Los Angeles Lakers took on the Denver Nuggets in game seven of the Western Conference Quarterfinals in the 2012 NBA playoffs at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. (Photo: Noel Vasquez/Getty Images)

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Kanye West: The Road to the BET Awards - Shortly after the song leaked, Kanye and Kim were seen together canoodling in public. They've been causing paparazzi frenzies across the world ever since. (Photo: Noel Vasquez/Getty Images)

"I Dont Like" Remix, May 1, 2012  - In May, Kanye ramped up hype for the forthcoming G.O.O.D. Music compilation with a remix of Chitown upstart Chief Keef's "I Don't Like," featuring Jadakiss, Pusha T, Big Sean and Keef himself. 

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Kanye West: Road to the BET Awards - In May, Kanye ramped up hype for the forthcoming GOOD Music compilation with a remix of Chitown upstart Chief Keef's "I Don't Like," featuring Jadakiss, Pusha T, Big Sean and Keef himself. (Photos: Courtesy Glory Boy Entertainment; WENN.com)

Big Things Poppin' - Kanye West and Jay-Z hit the Cruel Summer presentation, a short film by Yeezy himself, during the 65th Annual Cannes Film Festival at Casino Palm Beach in Cannes, France.(Photo: Marc Piasecki/Getty Images)

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Kanye West: Road to the BET Awards - At a star-studded premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May (seen above), Kanye unveiled DONDA's first project, a "seven-screen" film titled Cruel Summer — also the name of the highly anticipated GOOD Music album.(Photo: Marc Piasecki/Getty Images for Belvedere)

Air Yeezy Takeover, June 9, 2012 - Kanye's creative madness extended to the sneaker world earlier this month, when he unveiled the second edition of his Nike Air Yeezy sneakers. Hungry sneaker heads camped out at select stores days before they went on sale.(Photos: EPA/ROLF†VENNENBERND/Landov; Courtesy Nike)

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Kanye West: Road to the BET Awards - Kanye's creative madness extended to the sneaker world earlier this month, when he unveiled the second edition of his Nike Air Yeezy sneakers. Hungry sneaker heads camped out of select stores for days beforehand.(Photos: EPA/ROLF†VENNENBERND/Landov; Courtesy Nike)

G.O.O.D. Music: Road to the BET Awards - The G.O.O.D. Music camp has turned up the heat in the early part of this year with their hit single "Mercy," featuring Kanye West, Big Sean, Pusha T and 2 Chainz, which is an appropriate lead in for their highly anticipated album Cruel Summer. It all adds up to a perfect predecessor to what's sure to be a show-stopping performance at the BET Awards '12.(Photo: Courtesy Def Jam Records)

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Kanye West: Road to the BET Awards - Kanye and his GOOD Music camp turned up the heat even further with their hit single and video "Mercy," featuring Yeezy, Big Sean, Pusha T and 2 Chainz. It's the perfect predecessor to what's sure to be a show-stopping performance at the 2012 BET Awards.(Photo: Courtesy Def Jam Records)