Kanye West

Kanye West
General information
Birth name	Kanye Omari West
Born	June 8, 1977 (age 48)
Origin	Atlanta, Georgia
Genre(s)	Rap, R&B
Occupation(s)	Rapper
Years active	1996-present
Label(s)	GOOD Music Roc-A-Fella Records Def Jam Recordings Universal Music Group
Website	www.kanyewest.com

Kanye West (born June 8, 1977) is an American rapper. He has been a frequent source of controversy due to his conduct on social media, at award shows and public settings, as well as his comments on the music and fashion industries, U.S. politics, race, and slavery.

Relation to Taylor Swift

2009

During the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, West stepped on stage and interrupted Taylor Swift during her acceptance speech for Video of the Year, saying "Yo Taylor, I'mma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time." He then left the stage and was escorted out of the venue. Swift was able to finish her speech when Beyoncé invited her back on stage when she won an award, saying "I remember being 17 years old, up for my first MTV Award with Destiny’s Child, and it was one of the most exciting moments in my life,” Beyoncé said. “So, I’d like for Taylor to come out and have her moment."

2010

Swift penned "Innocent" on her album Speak Now as a letter to West. The song speaks on how she forgives West for his actions. While she wrote this song, there was no proof of him apologizing to her. She performed the song at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards as her sole appearance of the night.

2015

Things appeared to be patched up when in 2015, Swift presented West with the Video Vanguard Life-achievement award during the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. When she announced the award, she made parody of the situation by saying "Imma let you finish, but Kanye West had one of the best careers of all time!" Following this, West sent Swift flowers, which she posted on her Instagram. At this point in time, West and Swift all seemed to be on good terms with each other in the public eye.

2016

In June of 2016, West released a music video for his song "Famous", which featured nude wax figures of celebrities, including Swift, in bed with him. The wax figures were created without the permission of those featured. The song contains the lyrics "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex. Why? I made that bitch famous." The media quickly brought this lyric to light.

Four days after the lyric was made public, Taylor responded to it at the 58th Grammy Awards while receiving the Album of the Year award for 1989.

“

There are going to be people along the way who will try to undercut your success, or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame, but if you just focus on the work and you don’t let those people sidetrack you, someday when you get where you’re going, you’ll look around and you will know that it was you and the people who love you who put you there, and that will be the greatest feeling in the world.

”

Kim Kardashian, West's wife at the time, posted the phone call that she had recorded between West and Swift, showing Taylor hearing the lyric "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex." In the edited video posted, it appears that Swift said:

“

Yeah, go with whatever line makes you feel better, it's obviously very tongue-in-cheek either way. And I really appreciate you telling me about it, that's really nice [...] I don't think anyone would listen to that and be like 'that's a real diss, she must be crying.' You've gotta tell the story the way that it happened to you and the way that you experienced it. You honestly didn't know who I was before that. It doesn't matter that I sold 7 million of that album before you did that which is what happened, you didn't know who I was before that. It's fine. [...] If people ask me about it, I think it would be great for me to be like, 'Look, he called me and told me about the line.'

”

West can be heard telling Swift, "I just had a responsibility to you as a friend, you know, and thanks for being so cool about it." The recording of the call without Swift's consent was illegal and broke Californian telephone call recording law. Following the video's release, Swift responded in an Instagram post, captioned "That moment when Kanye West secretly records your phone call, then Kim posts it on the Internet", with the post stating the following the following:

“

Where is the video of Kanye telling me he was going to call me 'that bitch' in his song? It doesn't exist because it never happened. You don't get to control someone's emotional response of being called 'that bitch' in front of the entire world. Of course I wanted to like the song. I wanted to believe Kanye when he told me that I would love the song. I wanted us to have a friendly relationship. He promised to play the song for me, but he never did. While I wanted to be supportive of Kanye on the phone call, you cannot 'approve' a song you haven't heard. Being falsely painted as a liar when I was never given the full story or played any part of the song is character assassination. I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative, one that I have never asked to be a part of, since 2009.

”

On the same day as the video's release, Kardashian tweeted about National Snake Day, saying "They have holidays for everybody, I mean everything these days! 🐍". This tweet was interpreted as being aimed at Swift, and the hashtag #TaylorSwiftIsASnake became trending.

2017

Taylor released her album reputation in 2017 after a hiatus from the public eye, reclaiming the snake persona placed on her by the Internet as her own. The song "Look What You Made Me Do" features lyrics about the feud, and the music video references this as well.

2020

In 2020, the full, unedited video of the phone call between Swift and West was released, confirming that Taylor Swift was never shown the line that called her "that bitch". This led to people apologizing to Swift and acknowledging that she did not lie in regards to the phone call and what she had agreed to.

2024

On August 15, 2024, Swift released a live version of her song, "thanK you aIMee", to purchase. However, the title of the song was changed to "thank You aimEe". The change in capitalization is widely though of to be a reference to West, who legally changed his name to "Ye" in 2021.

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