Kanye West is a talented man, but do those talents stretch beyond music to becoming “the black Larry David?” Well, a found clip of his never-to-be-aired sitcom for HBO may provide the answer.

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The clip, uploaded to Youtube as a showreel by actress Alison Quinn, sees the rapper visit a “make-a-wish kid” in what is a sequence with obvious overtones of deadpan, self-parody shows such as Louie and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Indeed, in a 2008 interview, writer and producer Larry Charles said the show was West’s version of Larry David’s cult hit. “What Kanye West said to me the first time," he said, "is ‘I’m the black Larry David.’ That’s the first thing he said to me. So it’s like a Kanye and Curb show, it’s kind of improvised about the situations and stuff."

“It was really good,” he added, “but again I think it was too hardcore for HBO.”

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Whether HBO, which is well known for “hardcore” shows such as Game Of Thrones, really rejected it for this reason is unknown. Judge for yourself below.

Authors

Stephen Kelly

Stephen Kelly is a freelance culture and science journalist. He oversees BBC Science Focus's Popcorn Science feature, where every month we get an expert to weigh in on the plausibility of a newly released TV show or film. Beyond BBC Science Focus, he has written for such publications as The Guardian, The Telegraph, The I, BBC Culture, Wired, Total Film, Radio Times and Entertainment Weekly. He is a big fan of Studio Ghibli movies, the apparent football team Tottenham Hotspur and writing short biographies in the third person.

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