The feud between Kanye West and Taylor Swift has been the driving narrative behind celebrity and pop culture for an entire decade now. And it's not over yet. In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Swift discusses her past with Kanye and his wife, Kim Kardashian. At one point in the conversation, Swift is get into the infamous recorded phone call, in which Kanye allegedly asked permission to use her name in his 2016 song "Famous." As Swift tells Rolling Stone:
And I was like, “OK, good. We’re back on good terms.” And then when I heard the song, I was like, “I’m done with this. If you want to be on bad terms, let’s be on bad terms, but just be real about it.” And then he literally did the same thing to Drake. He gravely affected the trajectory of Drake’s family and their lives. It’s the same thing. Getting close to you, earning your trust, detonating you. I really don’t want to talk about it anymore because I get worked up, and I don’t want to just talk about negative shit all day, but it’s the same thing. Go watch Drake talk about what happened. [West denied any involvement in Pusha-T’s revelation of Drake’s child and apologized for sending “negative energy” toward Drake.]
What's interesting about this response is how she brings Kanye West and Pusha-T's feud with Drake into the conversation. In 2018, Pusha-T revealed the existence of Drake's child in the song "The Story of Adidon." Many people, including Drake, believed it was Pusha's producer, Kanye West, who leaked the information about the existence of the child.
But, West has long denied he had any part in revealing the child to Pusha-T. And in December of last year, things took a weird turn when West claims Drake tried to threaten him after a group of people attacked Pusha on stage during a show in Toronto.
That feud has remained in a weird stalemate during most of 2019, but Swift's comments in this Rolling Stone cover seems to imply that West had direct involvement in Pusha's feud with Drake. For what it's worth, Pusha has literally said that the information came from Drake's producer 40. However, it's possible Pusha said that to take the speculation off of West (or that simply everyone knew and the information could have come from anywhere).
Regardless, this beef will never die, but at least it gives us something interesting to talk about for a little while until another line about Swift appears on West's album next week.
Matt Miller is a Brooklyn-based culture/lifestyle writer and music critic whose work has appeared in Esquire, Forbes, The Denver Post, and documentaries.
