(AllHipHop News) In less than two weeks, Kanye West went from intentionally omitting Jay Z’s name while performing to claiming that Jay Z influenced Apple’s biggest acquisition deal in its history. Earlier today at Cannes Lions Creativity Conference in France, Mr. West spoke on how Jay Z’s Magna Carta Holy Grail collaboration with Samsung helped Dr. Dre’s Beats by Dre/Apple deal happen.
Last July, Jay Z partnered with Samsung for a Magna Carta Holy Grail app that would give 1 million Samsung Galaxy owners a free download of Jay Z’s album. Less than four months after Jay Z and Kanye performed at the first night of Samsung’s SXSW concerts, AdWeek reports that West explains how Jay Z’s Samsung deal may have been culturally influential, but is ultimately behind Apple:
There would have been no Beats deal without the Samsung deal. It showed the No. 1 company the importance of connecting with culture. The reason I said I didn’t like Samsung particularly is because throughout my entire life, because of how my parents raised me, I have to work with the No. 1. I can’t work with anyone but Jay Z, because he’s No. 1. I can’t be with any girl but Kim, because that’s the girl whose pictures I look at the most and get turned on by. I’m not going to represent any company but Louis Vuitton, because that’s No. 1. … Samsung is not quite Apple, but it showed that Jimmy [Iovine] and Dre would be able to connect with the No. 1 influencers.
For the deal, Jay Z was reportedly paid $5 million. While Kanye has not announced any hands-on collaboration with any tech companies as of yet, he did reveal that him and Instagram CEO/co-founder Kevin Systrom spoke about West fixing Instagram:
I said to Kevin [Systrom], why don’t you let us redo Instagram? Now, you know, Instagram is nice. It’s nice looking. I’m not knocking it. But just in general, everyone spends all of their time looking at their screens or their phones. And just as a simple task, we could clean that up.
Days after their wedding, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West posted a picture of the two of them kissing in front of a flower wall which amassed an record 1.9 Instagram likes. According to West, achieving that record almost ruined his honeymoon:
Annie Leibovitz pulled out right before the wedding—maybe she was scared about the idea of celebrity. … But I still wanted my wedding photos to look like Annie Leibovitz. Now, can you imagine telling someone who just wants to Instagram a photo, the No. 1 person on Instagram, that we need to work on the color of the flowered wall? But the fact that the No. 1 most liked photo has this certain aesthetic on it was a win for what the mission is—of raising the palette.