The beleaguered rapper dropped his 'Vultures 1' album amid controversy involving Ozzy Osborne and Donna Summer.
Kanye "Ye" West is name dropping Taylor Swift once again. The embattled rapper references Swift on his new song, "Carnival," which is featured on his Vultures 1 collaborative album with Ty Dolla $ign.
Swift's name comes amid a pop culture-heavy verse that also includes direct mentions of Game of Thrones, Elon Musk, R. Kelly, Bill Cosby and Sean "Diddy" Combs, among other veiled references.
"I made six Taylor Swifts / Since I had the Rollie on my wrist," he raps on the track.
On Sunday, a video surfaced on social media that shows Ye recording in a crowded room. See the clip and hear the verse below.
WARNING: NSFW LANGUAGE.
"Carnival" comes eight years after Ye reignited his feud with the pop star by referencing her in his 2016 song "Famous." In the song, West rapped, "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? I made that b***h famous."
Of course, prior to that, Ye famously crashed the stage and interrupted Swift's acceptance speech during the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.
Swift claimed she never consented to West's "Famous" lyric in reference to her, though the rapper and his then-wife, Kim Kardashian, insisted the singer signed off on the line. Kardashian later went so far as to release an edited video of a phone call between the artists during an episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians that seemed to show the moment Swift OK'd the lyric. However, when the full clip of the call was later dug up by Swifties, it became evident that the pop star had been told about a different lyric.
In the unedited video, after West tells Swift to "brace herself" to hear his proposed line, Swift asks, "Is it gonna be mean?"
"No, I don't think it's mean," West replies.
He then shares the lyric, rapping, "I feel like Taylor Swift might owe me sex," with Swift laughing in response and saying, "That's not mean."
At no point in the video is the line "I made that b**ch famous" discussed, and in fact, Swift expresses her worry that West was going to call her a "b**ch" in the song.
"It doesn’t feel mean," she says again of the line, "but like, oh my god, the build-up you gave it. I thought it was gonna be like, 'That stupid, dumb b**ch,' like, but it’s not."
Recently, Swift called the incident a "fully manufactured frame job" in an interview with Time.
"[It was] an illegally recorded phone call, which Kim Kardashian edited and then put out to say to everyone that I was a liar," she recalled in her 2023 Person of the Year feature. "Make no mistake —my career was taken away from me... I thought that moment of backlash was going to define me negatively for the rest of my life."
She continued, "That took me down psychologically to a place I've never been before," Swift said of the public feud. "I moved to a foreign country. I didn’t leave a rental house for a year. I was afraid to get on phone calls. I pushed away most people in my life because I didn't trust anyone anymore. I went down really, really hard."
Swift publicly reemerged in 2017 with her album, Reputation, which appeared to serve as a scathing response to the fallout with West in the form of her fiery single, "Look What You Made Me Do."
Vultures 1 is Ye's first release since he drew widespread criticism and condemnation beginning in October 2022 for making several antisemitic remarks, including his alleged plan to go "death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE."
The rapper's remarks led to his Instagram account being restricted and the post in question being deleted. Similarly, the rapper and fashion mogul's tweets were removed from Twitter (now X) due to a violation of the platform's policies.
The antisemitic posts came on the heels of West's controversial "White Lives Matter" shirts, which he debuted at Paris Fashion Week earlier that month.
The rapper issued a mea culpa on Instagram in December 2023 ahead of his album release.
"I sincerely apologize to the Jewish community for any unintended outburst caused by my words or actions," West's statement read in Hebrew, via Google Translate. "It was not my intention to offend or disrespect."
He added, "I deeply regret any pain I may have caused. I am committed to starting with myself and learning from this experience to ensure greater sensitivity and understanding in the future. Your forgiveness is important to me, and I am committed to making amends and promoting unity."
Vultures 1 was set to be released on Friday and, after several delays, it is now available on Spotify. There was a new single from the project, titled "Talking / Once Again," released on Friday, which features West's 10-year-old daughter, North West.
Since the album's release, both Ozzy Osbourne and the estate of Donna Summer have come forward to say that Ye sampled their work without permission.
Osbourne took to his official Instagram page on Friday, claiming that he previously denied a request from West to sample a performance of the Black Sabbath track "War Pig," but West used it anyway.
"@kanyewest ASKED PERMISSION TO SAMPLE A SECTION OF A 1983 LIVE PERFORMANCE OF 'WAR PIG' FROM THE US FESTIVAL WITHOUT VOCALS & WAS REFUSED PERMISSION BECAUSE HE IS AN ANTISEMITE AND HAS CAUSED UNTOLD HEARTACHE TO MANY," Osbourne wrote. "HE WENT AHEAD AND USED THE SAMPLE ANYWAY AT HIS ALBUM LISTENING PARTY LAST NIGHT. I WANT NO ASSOCIATION WITH THIS MAN!"
Ozzy's wife, Sharon Osbourne, doubled down in a statement to TMZ, reportedly saying, "Kanye f***ed with the wrong Jew this time." She also said that the couple had issued a cease and desist to West.
Meanwhile, Summer's camp shared a similar claim on the legendary singer's Instagram Story and tagged Sharon Osbourne.
"Kanye West… asked permission to use Donna Summer's song 'I Feel Love,' he was denied… he changed the words, had someone re sing it or used AI but it’s 'I Feel Love'… copyright infringement!!!" the statement reads.
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