Country music took a swipe at Kanye West’s infamous September interruption of Taylor Swift at the MTV VMAs at Wednesday night’s CMA awards in Nashville.
Following Taylor Swift’s opening number — a performance of “Forever and Always,” which included a cameo by Access Hollywood’s Nancy O’Dell — CMA co-hosts Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley took the stage and ripped the rapper.
Singing the country standard “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys,” the hosts took a swipe at the rapper, who stormed the VMA stage during Taylor Swift’s Best Female Video acceptance speech to champion Beyonce’s “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)” video.
“Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be Kanye,” they sang. “Let them pick guitars and drive them old trucks, ‘cause cowboys have manners, they don’t interrupt.”
As the hosts' opening monologue continued, Paisley noted their show was full of audience members who appreciate and respect each other.
“That’s what I love about the CMAs — we get along on this show. We’re like one big slightly dysfunctional family. We’re like George Straight Plus 8,” Paisley said.
And West’s stage interruption was referenced again later on in the show.
An hour and a half into the event, Underwood told Paisley that “Welcome To The Future” was “one of my favorite videos of all time.”
As Paisley began to thank his video team, 88-year-old country legend Little Jimmy Dickens walked out on stage to stop the speech.
“Excuse me! Excuse me sir ... I’ll let you finish later. Now Brad Paisley, I know you had a nice video and all that, but Taylor Swift made the best video of all time,” Dickens said as the camera panned to Swift, cracking up in the audience. “You go girl.”
Later, as Swift accepted the award for Best Female Vocalist, she also took a swipe at West’s expense.
“I want to thank every single person in this room tonight for not running up on this stage during this speech,” she said. “Thank you.”