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Now you can listen to Kanye West's epic "SNL" backstage meltdown

An audio clip has surfaced of rapper Kanye West's expletive-laced meltdown before his performance on "Saturday Night Live," during which he insults Taylor Swift and touts his importance
Audio: Kanye West's backstage "SNL" meltdown 01:46

In the midst of his meltdown over the botched release of his new album and regular Twitter rants over the past week, Kanye West also had time to serve as musical guest on "Saturday Night Live." But as new audio obtained by Page Six illustrates, he almost didn't make it to the stage.

In the secretly recorded clip, West expresses his displeasure with the state of the stage he'd be performing on as well as Taylor Swift, who had recently struck back over his lyrics about her in the song "Famous."

He went on the compare himself to the likes of Stanley Kubrick, Pablo Picasso and the apostle Paul, saying that he is 50 percent more influential than any of them and would be for the next 1,000 years.

"It was like he was having an emotional breakdown. He was calling the crew 'white motherf***ers' and then said he was going to walk out," a source says. "The only thing that stopped him from actually leaving right then was that nobody had access to the freight elevator. If he'd walked out on the live show, it would have been a disaster."

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