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Beside his huge role in both the worlds of music and fashion, Kanye West is also known for his colorful Twitter rants. On Monday night, the rapper unleashed his latest stream of consciousness onto the platform, taking aim at the music industry, record labels, and even some of his friends.
Ye began his series of tweets by first threatening not to release any new music until he‘s out of his current contract--something he’s been vocal about having issues with in the past. At the same time, he referred to himself as “the new Moses,” calling the music industry and the NBA “modern day slave ships.”
This is far from the first time West has voiced his frustrations over the inner workings of his record deal. In September 2019, Kanye reached an undisclosed settlement with EMI Publishing over ownership of the songs he made after October 2010, in addition to recouping the money he should‘ve made since 2015 from his music. While that was a huge step, he’s still entangled in a strict contract from when he first signed his deal more than a decade ago, which is what he’s trying to get out of in addition to owning all of his masters.
Kanye also called out some of his fellow musicians in the middle of his message about fighting to get out of his deal. The rapper mentioned in a now-deleted tweet that he needs a public apology from J. Cole and Drake, comparing himself to Nat Turner and saying he‘s fighting for “us.” Kanye also wrote that he’s ”waiting to meet with” Jay-Z, though he later deleted the tweet, too, while expressing regret for misspelling his name.
“I have the utmost respect for all brothers,” Kanye tweeted. ”We need to link and respect each other... no more dissing each other on labels we don’t own.”
The rapper even ended up returning to Twitter on Tuesday morning to continue his conversation about the music industry, posting screenshots of a conversation he had with someone counseling him on his options.
In this conversation, Kanye receives messages (presumably from some sort of legal counsel) educating him on his options for going after Sony and Universal while trying to buy back his own masters and hopefully getting out of his deal completely. The rapper reiterates that he‘s not open to working with them in any capacity in the future.
Later on Tuesday, Kanye continued to update fans on the progress he’s making through his conversations with industry executives, some of whom reached out following his initial rant on Monday.
As of now, this situation is still ongoing, but the fight for ownership within the music industry is important, so it’s something we’re not going to stop hearing about any time soon.