Ye — aka Kanye West — caused quite a stir with his recent appearance on NORE’s podcast Drink Champs. In addition to throwing his former GOOD Music signees Big Sean and John Legend under the bus and realigning himself with Donald Trump, he also made other wild claims including accusing fellow former Roc-A-Fella Records in-house producer Just Blaze of copying his production style. While it’s true that both producers made use of pitch-shifted soul samples, there is ample evidence that their techniques were developed concurrently — that didn’t stop Kanye from doing his best to burn that particular bridge.
Now, Just Blaze himself has replied to Kanye’s claims, posting a statement on Instagram and Twitter calling the incident “unfortunate” and refuting the accusations of copying.
Well that was unfortunate. I’m only addressing this publicly because it was stated publicly. I’m not here for the mudslinging, I’m just a bit confused and disappointed.
None of what was said tonight regarding me fits with any of our history or our previous interactions – particularly in light of very recent attempts to work together again. Through recent years he has reached out to collaborate on various projects, including a much rumored collaborative project that he was looking for me to handle a good amount of. It unfortunately never saw the light of day due to reasons unrelated to me. Most recently, a couple of months back I woke up to a literal red alert from his people that he was looking for me for his last album in the 11th hour. We tried to pull something off but it was way too last minute.
Regarding that one comment: respectfully, I’m happy for him and the fact that he has succeeded in the ways he wanted to, but not everyone wants to be where he is. Everyone’s definition of personal success is a bit different. I’m quite happy where I am creatively, with my family, and my life in general. We were a part of history together and I wish him well and continued success.
Just signs off by warning, “Media: please do not clickbait this,” but like… we all have jobs to do, man. Anyway, the fallout from Kanye’s implosion on Drink Champs continues to land on the music landscape and I’m sure that there will be further responses from those folks the mercurial producer mentioned because there were a lot and he wasn’t really kind to most of them.