Kanye West reignited long-standing tensions with JAY-Z on Sunday by accusing the Hip-Hop mogul of undermining him over a lyric referencing West’s support for Donald Trump on their 2021 track “Jail” and revealed the two nearly scrapped the collaboration over it.
The lyric in question comes from JAY-Z’s verse on “Jail,” where he raps: “Hol’ up, Donda, I’m with your baby when I touch back road/Told him, ‘Stop all of that red cap, we goin’ home.'”
West, who famously wore a red “Make America Great Again” hat during his Trump-era political phase, took offense to the line and claimed it led to a heated dispute between the two longtime collaborators.
According to West, he gave JAY-Z an ultimatum — remove the lyric or be removed from the song entirely.
“Why did Jay Z have to say ‘no red hat’ on Jail,” West posted on April 20. “That s### tore me to my soul. We fought about it and he told me either leave that line on there or take my verse off.”
He added, “Me wearing the red hat was the most stand out example of me going against ‘the program.'”
West also suggested there might have been more to JAY-Z’s criticism, adding, “Do you guys think he was instructed to say that?”
Kanye West Publicly Targets JAY-Z & Beyoncé’s Children
Their relationship, once a cornerstone of 2000s Hip-Hop, has been fractured for years.
Earlier this year, West posted a series of offensive tweets targeting JAY-Z and Beyoncé’s 7-year-old twins.
“Has anyone ever seen Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s younger kids?,” he wrote. “They’re retarded.” In another tweet, he added, “having retarded children is a choice.”
After deleting the tweets, West clarified he didn’t remove them out of remorse. “NOT BECAUSE IM A GOOD PERSON,” he wrote. He followed up with another offensive post: “I TOOK IT DOWN LIKE DOWN SYNDROME GET IT.”
He then escalated the attack further, tweeting, “F### JAY Z AND HIS WHOLE FAMILY ESPECIALLY HIS SHOOTERS.”
West later issued a public apology to JAY-Z, writing, “I’m sorry Jay Z…I be feeling bad about my tweet but I still feel I gave my life to this industry and thought so many people were my family but when I needed family on some real s### none of these rap n##### had my back.”
But just hours later, he reversed course again, posting a vulgar tweet about Beyoncé: “Do Beyoncé ever let Jay get p####? I mean like at least a couple times.”