Insanul: Jay-Z and Kanye West’s relationship has hit a rough patch.
Hov unleashed some Ye subliminals on the '4:44' track “Kill Jay Z”
Two days after that song was released, it was reported Kanye is leaving TIDAL, claiming
he’s still owed 3 million dollars from the streaming service.
But from their history of competitiveness and shady exchanges,
maybe we should have seen this coming all along.
The two first met in 2000, after Kanye produced “This Can’t Be Life” for
Jay Z’s ‘The Dynasty: Roc La Familia’ album.
Although they often made magic together, they were odds creatively right off the bat.
Kanye signed to Jay Z and Dame Dash’s Roc-a-Fella Records as their in house producer,
but when it came to seeing Kanye as a rapper, Hov was one of the many to count Ye out.
Jay told TIME:
Fast forward to 2006, Jay Z collabed with Coldplay on the track “Beach Chair”
Kanye took issue with the collaboration as evidenced on “Big Brother”
In 2011, Kanye and Jay teamed up to deliver
one of hip-hop’s most beloved collab albums,
"Watch The Throne."
But according to Hov in an interview with Zane Lowe, an argument between them almost
got in the way of the album
Jay : Soon as I thought we had wrapped up "Watch The Throne" I made 2 records.
I had “Holy Grail” and I had “Oceans”... and I played those records for Kanye and he
was like “nooo those have to go on Watch The Throne” so we spent 4 days arguing about
those records…
literally arguing 4 days, not like fighting, well it was some pushing at one point"
Since that album, their differences have become more public.
In 2013, Jay Z worked with Justin Timberlake on his song “Suit & Tie.”
Shortly after JT’s single hit airwaves, Kanye dissed the song in what would become
first of many on-stage vents concerning Jay Z
When 'Magna Carta Holy Grail' dropped on July 4th 2013, and everyone on Twitter was talking about
Jay’s new album, Kanye logged on to tweet about his excitement…
about a movie.
Ye tweeted:
Thanks Kanye.
Then came Kanye’s wedding to Kim Kardashian in May 2014
Although he was slated to attend and some reports even named Jay Z as the best man,
Hov and Beyonce skipped the wedding altogether, and instead took a trip to the Hamptons.
Kanye’s addressed the matter in an interview with GQ:
That sounds good but may not of really been the case.
A month after Jay Z skipped the wedding, Kanye performed at Bonaroo and made it a point
to omit Jay Z’s name from his performance of “Cold”, “Blood On The Leaves” and
“Touch The Sky”
In 2015, Jay Z launched TIDAL, the first artist-owned music streaming service.
In 2016, Kanye, who was present at the TIDAL launch, announced his upcoming album
'The Life Of Pablo' would be available exclusively on the platform and nowhere else.
But a couple months later, you guessed it, the album showed up on Spotify, Apple Music
and Kanye’s own website.
This caused a further divide between Ye and Hov, who owns TIDAL.
Then came Summer 2016, which saw the weird Throne placement on Drake’s song “Pop Style”.
The track where Jay Z only has 2 bars
During the Seattle stop of 'The Life Of Pablo' tour in October 2016, Kanye explained what
happened to the rest of Hov’s verse:
In that same rant, Kanye mentioned there will never be a ‘Watch The Throne 2’ and expressed
his hurt over Jay Z’s response to Kim Kardashian’s Paris robbery
Days later, Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder Kareem “Biggs” Burke, told PAGE SIX:
I spoke to Jay [after Kanye’s rant] and we’re both just like, ‘We miss the old
Kanye.’
In November 2016, Kanye hit the stage to rant yet again.
Only this time, he included Beyonce in his list of complaints alongside Jay Z
Jay Z stayed relatively silent over the situation,
until his latest album '4:44', released June 30th 2017
Word is, there’s three more songs coming from Jay Z on the physical release of '4:44.'
Perhaps, there’ll be more insight on Jay’s fallout with Kanye.
We’ll have to wait and see.
I’m Insanul for Genius news, bringing you the meaning and knowledge behind the music.