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A couple of weeks ago, there were rumors that Charlamagne Tha God spoke with Kanye West for an extended interview, and that conversation surfaced on Tuesday (May 1).
The discussion lasted for two hours, and in that time Ye touched on Barack Obama, Donald Trump, being blacklisted by radio for beefing with Taylor Swift and other topics.
But probably the most revealing part of the interview is when Kanye talked about his beef with JAY Z, which the public knew of since 2016 when Ye dissed him at a show in Sacramento, Calif.
The way it seems, Ye’s beef with Jay is both personal and professional. Personal because Jay and Beyoncé didn’t attend his wedding, and professional because they had a dispute over touring money.
“I was hurt about [Jay-Z and Beyoncé] not coming to the wedding,” West told Charlamagne. “I understand they was going through some things, but if [we’re] family you’re not gonna miss a wedding. I’m not using this interview to put [out] any negative things, but I gotta state my truth.”
Kanye also said that he doesn’t care why Jay and Beyoncé didn’t attend the wedding because the reason wouldn’t solve anything.
“I don’t think the answer fixes it,” he explained.
In regards to the touring money, Ye admitted that Jay helped him secure it from the company Live Nation, which was a challenge since he was in debt and couldn’t get it on his own. He also didn’t like how Jay-Z talked about the money on his “4:44” album.
“You give him $20 million without blinking / He gave you 20 minutes onstage, f–k was he thinking?” rapped Jay in the song “Kill Jay-Z.”
“That concept that he gave me the money, that’s what frustrated me,” admitted Ye. “Actually, the money he got from Live Nation. Roc Nation was managing me at the time, and that’s normal that you would give someone money — it was a touring deal.
“But the fact that it was worded that it came from [him]. I’m a very loyal, emotional artist-person. That made me feel that I owed more than just the money itself. It put me under a bit more of a kind of controlled situation,” he added.
Kanye then said that he appreciates Jay helping him with the tour’s financing but didn’t like how he doled out the assistance.
“Have you ever did something for someone that was positive, but something about the way you did it blew the whole thing up?” he asked Charlamagne. “Jay did something that was positive, but the fact that I didn’t receive the information in the right way … I always feel like, I’m out here in Hollywood, my mom has passed, I don’t know who I can trust. I can’t trust nobody.”
Later in the interview, the GOOD Music founder spoke about his mental breakdown, which happened in 2016, shortly after the Taylor Swift incident at the VMA’s, which he said helped trigger the breakdown. The rapper admitted that after the incident, he was sort of blackballed from radio and didn’t get much play time. He said this messed with his head.
“Fear, stress, control, being controlled, manipulation,” he said. “Like being a pawn in the chess piece of life, stressing things that create the validation that I didn’t need to worry about as much.”
“I want to point out the moment when you’re in the hospital bed, and you’re next to your friend, and you tell them ‘Don’t let this person leave my side,’ and they put you inside of an elevator and take all your friends away from you,” Kanye added. “That was the scariest moment of my life. I thought I was going to get killed.”
The 40-year-old also said the breakdown made him lose his swagger.
“One of the things that was incredible when I got out of the hospital was, I had lost my confidence,” he explained. “I never had the empathy for people who lacked confidence. I had so much of it, I didn’t know what it was like to be without it. [I didn’t have] that ‘Black Panther,’ ‘Superman’-level confidence … I wouldn’t speak up … I didn’t have me.”
You can see the entire interview between Kanye and Charlamange below.
