Amidst recent reports that Jay-Z sold Kanye West’s masters in exchange for his own, Ye has come forward to address the speculation.
Kanye West recently shared screenshots of his recording contracts on Twitter, revealing every fine detail of the legal agreements he held with the system he so recently opposed. Ye urged fellow rappers to reveal their own contracts with Universal and Sony earlier this week, claiming to be some sort of ‘Moses’ here to free his people and not have them “enslaved.”
Upon further inspection of Kanye’s exposed contracts, legal experts deduced that Jay-Z sold the masters for Kanye West’s first six albums to Def Jam in the Roc-A-Fella deal in 2004. The deal would grant Jay-Z control of his own masters in exchange. The revelation made some fans scowl at Hov for a moment, but Kanye dismantled the idea that it was as simple as that.
Taking to Twitter to address the growing conversation that led many to speculate that it was the reason for Kanye’s long hauled rift with his “big brother” Jay-Z, Ye remained goal-oriented. “Don’t let the system pit us against each other,” he wrote. “JAY IS MY BROTHER… I have eternal love for all artist that have been through and are still trapped this crooked system. Jay still doesn’t get his own masters back for ten years. I will see to it that we all get our masters.”
While Kanye isn’t denying that his masters were sold by Jay-Z along with Roc-A-Fella and that the rapper was afforded the opportunity to regain control of his own masters, he isn’t quite blaming Hov either. Ye instead seems to be fixated on the bigger picture, which is the broken system he is challenging in such unorthodox ways.
While Jay-Z is yet to address the deal that has come back to tower over his reputation, and likely will not, it’s inspiring to see Kanye West remain steadfast in his cause and not have his mission thwarted by in-fighting.
Don’t let the system pit us against each other … JAY IS MY BROTHER … I have eternal love for all artist that have been through and are still trapped this crooked system. Jay still doesn’t get his own masters back for ten years. I will see to it that we all get our masters pic.twitter.com/LshyaIVO1Y
— ye (@kanyewest) September 18, 2020
