Kanye West Lost It in More Ways than One at the VMAs

I didn't watch this year's MTV Video Music Awards. From reports, Kanye West was nominated for five awards but didn't win any. Here's raw footage of his rant. Can someone provide more background on this? I'm not understanding why this is that a big of a deal to him.

This is not the first time West has spazzed out in public. It's so unprofessional and denigrates his talent. West is not the best rapper or hip-hop artist. He sells truckloads of albums and that should be enough for him. Common is a far better rapper than Kanye yet he did not react this way when he's been shut out of well-ddeserved awards.

When an artist creates to win awards, we end up with the so-called music we have today. Anyhoo, somebody fill me in if I missed a salient point behiind the VMAs and Kanye's public meltdown.