Remember when Kanye West and Jay Z used to be friends?
Oh, how times have changed …
Jay and Kanye go all the way back to the early 2000s, when Kanye worked as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records.
They’ve collaborated multiples times, most notably on the 2011 album Watch the Throne and the subsequent tour.
Kanye has even been one of the key members in Jay Z’s music streaming company, Tidal.
By all accounts, they’ve been extremely close for years — but at some point within the last several months, all that has changed.
According to a rant Kanye went on during a concert last October, the issues started because he and Jay recorded verses for a Drake song, but Jay demanded the verses be excluded from the final cut “out of respect for Meek.”
Because Meek Mill and Drake don’t get along, and Jay Z didn’t want to rock the boat.
Kanye called it “some Tidal/Apple bullsh-t,” and he seemed very upset that Jay chose the politics of the music industry over artistry.
His rant got more personal though as he claimed that their children have never played together, and that Jay Z never called him after Kim’s Paris robbery.
A month later, he still had some feelings on the subject.
“Jay Z, call me, bruh,” he begged during another concert. “You still ain’t called me. Jay Z, call me.”
“Jay Z, I know you got killers, please don’t send them at my head. Just call me. Talk to me like a man.”
The day after that, Kanye was hospitalized for his mental breakdown, so we imagine there’s a good chance Jay Z never got a hold of him.
Several months went by without any updates on the feud, but just a couple of days ago, Jay Z dropped his brand new album on Tidal.
And in one song, he made it clear that his issues with Kanye were far from resolved.
“I know people backstab you, I feel bad too,” he rapped. “But this ‘f-ck everybody’ attitude ain’t natural. But you ain’t the same, this ain’t KumbaYe, but you got hurt because you did cool by ‘Ye.”
“You have him 20 million without blinkin’, he gave you 20 minutes on stage, f-ck was he thinkin’?”
“‘F-ckin’ wrong with everybody?’, is that what you sayin’? But if everybody’s crazy, you’re the one that’s insane.”
And now Kanye has officially had it.
According to a new report from TMZ, Kanye has officially left Tidal over claims that the company owes him over $3 million.
He’s not leaving the company over Jay’s new song though — sources say that Kanye’s lawyers sent Tidal a letter about a month ago explaining his issues.
The issues are that he was promised a bonus for bringing new subscribers to Tidal after exclusively releasing his last album through the service, but he never got the money.
He also claims that the company was supposed to reimburse him for music videos for the album, but they haven’t done that, either.
His lawyers have told Tidal that due to these issues, his contract was terminated, but Tidal disagrees — they say that they still have exclusivity for Kanye’s new music.
They’ve said that if he goes against their original contract, they’ll sue, which is cool with Kanye, because he’ll sue them back.
Again, remember when these guys were friends?
It looks like those days are really and truly over.