The coronavirus quarantine is hard on everyone but it just got a little bit harder for Kanye West. With so many of us staring at our phones and laptops, even those who long ago tapped out of his feud with Taylor Swift are agog at the latest development, a newly leaked video. It’s a major escalation, ensuring that the saga will continue long after the Covid-19 pandemic passes.
L’affaire Taylor and Kanye has roots back to 2009 of course, but a particularly notable moment was in 2016, in which Kim Kardashian, as part of a “National Snake Day” celebration, defended her husband against accusations of lying by unleashing a video of a phone call. In the video, it appeared as if Swift gave approval for West’s risqué lyrics for the tune “Famous.” (If your memory is hazy, a step-by-step is available for further study.)
But now there is more. Someone — a guardian of truth! — as leaked the raw footage of what actually went down during that call.
If a full ten minutes of Kanye referring to his work as “Apple Steve Jobs-type music” isn’t your thing, there are some key takeaways. After asking Taylor to tweet-launch his new song, he then preps her for the controversial lyrics. There’s a lot of prevaricating, as well as using Kardashian and Ninja of Die Antwoord as a shield, then saying he’s been trying for eight months (eight months?!?) to come up with a more brilliant rhyme than “best” and “sex.”
Anyway, the point is that the couplet that West asked Swift to approve was not what ended up on the album. (He leaves the “I made the bitch famous” part out.) The video also shows just how savvy Swift is concerning her own social media impact, and why her launching West’s single (beyond being a preposterous ask on West’s part) would actually negatively impact the song.
The Internet, naturally, went haywire, and threw a #KanyeWestIsOverParty. And considering most everything is closed right now, the party may last well into the night.
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