Kanye made news in a concert rant last night. We know, stop us if you've heard this one before. This time, his subject wasn't Taylor Swift. Instead, he put Jay Z on blast, in a move that will be shocking to people that don't pay much attention to the relationship between Kanye and Jay.
Let's tell you what he said, as transcribed by Lainey Gossip, and then get to the analysis.
“Y’all didn’t get what y’all was supposed to get with me and Drake on this song because of some Tidal/Apple bullshit… it went into some Tidal shit, some political shit, some shit about percentages on songs. I can’t take this shit, bro! Our kids ain’t never even played together.”
So Kanye is talking about "Pop Style" here, which is a song Jay Z pulled his verse from out of respect for Meek Mill. That makes sense; Meek is signed to Roc Nation and Jay Z isn't a businessman, he's a business man.
But let's dig a little deeper and you'll find that this is no shock. First of all, Jay Z and Beyoncé famously didn't attend Kanye and Kim's wedding. But famous people will sometimes skip weddings so as to avoid becoming the focus of the event. Of course, they skipped mainly to hang out in the Hamptons with their daughter. Not only that, but Jay Z provided one of the worst verses in history to "Monster." That generated a ton of mockery, deservedly so. Subsequent to that, Watch the Throne was mainly seen as a Kanye album. Not to say that Jay's contributions were nothing, but that's a Kanye album with a lot of Jay Z features.
Maybe because of that, we get this weirdness around the Yeezus release. Jay Z dropped this in-retrospect ridiculous commercial building hype for Magna Carta Holy Grail. Rick Rubin is in the commercial, and Rick Rubin also famously produced Yeezus. Jay isn't on Yeezus, Kanye isn't on Grail. We don't need to tell you which features the better Rubin production.
So, there's a ton of smoke. And while Kanye did initially do his album as a Tidal exclusive, that may indeed have been a tip of the cap to his former mentor and boss. Now, all bets are entirely off. We would doubt if there's much personal anger between the two, but the professional resentment has got to be at a non-zero amount. That's normal, they're very talented and very successful and in the same field. Consider also that Jay Z last made a relevant solo album in 2004, when he was 34. Kanye is now 39 and breaking new ground in music and fashion. Sure, Jay is a major mogul, but it's gotta stick in his craw that his only critical success in the past decade has been under the wing of his former protege.
Sorry to disappoint Blue Ivy-North West fans, but we are not shocked that there's friction between Jay and Kanye.
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