Kanye West: I wanna be Elvis

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 23 (UPI) -- Kanye West won his first American Music Award Sunday night in Los Angeles, in the favorite rap/hip-hop album category for his CD "Graduation."

His disc beat out offerings from Jay-Z and Lil Wayne.

"I'd like to thank everybody who accepted me trying to break new boundaries in music," West said upon collecting his AMA at the star-studded ceremony.

"It's our responsibility as musicians to keep pushing each other, to keep competing with each other. It's a really great competition," he told the audience. "I see artists like Beyonce and Alicia Keys and Rihanna and Chris Brown and Chris Martin all in the same room and we're going to push this music to the point where it was like in the 1960s and '70s where you talk about Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles. We will be the new Beatles. We will be the new Hendrix. They say in any other industry, you know, you're supposed to do better than the past ... but when you say, 'I want to be Elvis,' they say, 'What's wrong with you?' Well, I wanna be Elvis."

West then walked away from the podium as the crowd cheered him on.

He returned later to pick up the award for favorite male rap/hip-hop artist and said he planned to give it to his fellow nominee Lil Wayne. Flo Rida was also nominated in the category.