Late Thursday night, musician and entrepreneur Kanye West—or “Ye,” as he would like to be called now—conducted his first talk since his split from wife Kim Kardashian, joining rapper Noreaga and DJ EFN for a chat on Drink Champs, a podcast that also airs on Diddy’s Revolt.
West seemed to be in good spirits, sipping on Hennessy and Hibiki, and even sparking up a joint. When asked whether he’d ever appear on Verzuz, he joked, “Oh, absolutely—but I would need about like four people to go against me at one time.” And, when pressed on whether he’d knock out Drake on Verzuz, he cracked, “I’m winning every situation.”
As far as his ongoing beef with Drake goes, West described how “Drake don’t do an outright diss song… he’s going to set it up like war.”
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“He gonna do stuff like live five blocks down the right from you,” he continued. “He gonna go and DM every single girl in your family, every single girl around your family, all your n----s’ girls.”
Later on, West admitted that he confronted Drake on a group text—that Drake, Kid Cudi, Pusha T, Jay-Z, Kardashian, and Travis Scott were on—over some of his raps about his then-wife Kardashian in which Drizzy intimated that he’d slept with her.
“One of the lines I said that was legend was, ‘I’m worth more than all of y’all on this text combined,’” West recalled messaging. Then, he said that he confronted Drake via the group text, sharing, “I had this conversation with Drake that’s like, ‘I never fucked Kim,’ but I was like, ‘But you acted like you did… Did you ever DM her? Everything else around it—you know, ’cause it ain’t about just the actual act of it.”
Recently, West has drawn criticism for platforming Marilyn Manson and DaBaby, having them alongside him for a Donda album listening event in Chicago, and inviting Manson to “worship” alongside him at a recent Sunday Service event.
“All the #Me Too—like, when I sit next to Marilyn Manson and DaBaby, right after both of them got canceled, for five songs, you know, it’s like they can’t cancel a song,” said West. “They’ll hit you with the accusations or somebody who you was with 10 years ago. And also, there’s women who’ve been through very serious things, pulled in alleys against they will—that’s different than a hug, but it’s classified as the same thing. It’s power and politics. You know, power-hungry maniacs and just control. This is 1984 mind-control we’re in.” (Marilyn Manson, for the record, is facing four lawsuits for sexual assault, has been accused of a horrendous cycle of abuse by the actresses Evan Rachel Wood and Esme Bianco, and is under investigation by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.)
There was a lot more, of course, including West claiming he was “shadow banned” on Twitter during his brief presidential run, despite Jack Dorsey’s personal assurances that he was not; that he’s “bought 1,200 living sheep,” making him some sort of literal shepherd; that he’s worth $9 billion; that walking around with his new haircut is “harder than wearing a Trump hat”; he pushed the bizarre right-wing lie that Margaret Sanger pushed birth control in order to limit the Black population (in reality, she worked closely with Black community leaders and was praised by Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta); came out against abortion (again); claimed Shakespeare “created 30 percent of our language” (?); and revealed how he’s still not technically divorced from Kardashian, offering, “She’s still my wife—it ain’t no paperwork,” adding that if he had his way they’d still be together.
He also said that he still supports Trump, remarking, “I still got a red hat on today. I’ll let y’all know that. I might not got it on, but I’ll let y’all know where I stand.”
More embarrassing than West’s relentless name-dropping and loose grasp of history, however, were the Drink Champs co-hosts Noreaga and DJ EFN, who refused to ask any follow-up questions and generally came off like a couple of possessed sycophants (at one point, Noreaga even told West that he would’ve voted for him for president). Perhaps it’s time for West to do an actual interview?
