Nicki Minaj has refused to clear her verse on Kanye West‘s song “New Body”. In doing so, she has inadvertently delayed the release of Ye and fellow rapper Ty Dolla Sign‘s much-anticipated (and very controversial) album Vultures which was set to be released on Friday. Lol.
In a post to X, Ye showed a screenshot of a message he’d sent to Minaj, asking her to approve the use of her vocals on the song.
“Hi it’s Ye,” the text began.
“May I call you about clearing New Body on the new album”.
And yes, we are just going to ignore the fact that the text message is green for the time being.
On an Instagram livestream, Minaj responded to Ye’s request.
“Regarding Kanye: that train has left the station, OK?.
“No disrespect in any way. I just put out a brand new album,” she continued, referencing the release of her latest album Pink Friday 2 which was released earlier in December.
“Why would I put out a song that has been out for three years? Come on, guys.”
Variations of the track have reportedly been scheduled to appear in three separate Ye albums but plans to get the track listed on the final product all fell through.
But also like … get this shit organised earlier?
Its giving me-at-uni-doing-the-assignment-the-night-before.
Per The Guardian, Minaj once described New Body as “the hit that got away”.
The decision puts Ye in an awkward situation since the song was rumoured to be the 10th track on his new album Vultures according to Genius.
A new date is yet to be announced.
Vultures has become a hotbed of controversy even before its official release.
The cover features an artwork by Caspar David Friedrich, a German landscape painter whose paintings were championed by Hitler and the Nazis as expressions of patriotism.
The cover art is also eerily reminiscent of Norweigan metal band Burzum’s, whose lead singer Varg Vikernes was convicted of inciting racial hatred against Jews and Muslims in 2014.
These details, paired with Ye’s recent descent down the rabbit hole of anti-semitism and conspiratorial thinking have left many worried about the potential for his album to normalise this sort of behaviour with his massive, and highly impressionable fanbase.