A newly resurfaced clip from Kanye West’s Donda sessions is shedding light on the tensions that would eventually fracture some of his closest creative relationships.
The footage, circulating on social media, shows Ye previewing a scrapped Pusha T verse for the track “Off The Grid,” his 2021 collaboration with Playboi Carti and Fivio Foreign. In the clip, Carti reacts positively, calling the verse “hard,” but questions Kanye about why it didn’t make the cut.
“I’d rather y’all be like, ‘I’m killing 20 n****s’ or ‘I’m fucking too many bitches’ and all that shit than y’all saying some Black Lives Matter shit on my shit. Black Lives Matter is, like, worse than the devil to me. It’s mind control.”
The comment echoes Ye’s controversial views on politics and activism and also highlights how fragile Kanye’s industry ties have become. His long-running partnership with Pusha T under G.O.O.D. Music unraveled in recent years, with the artists trading public shots.
Meanwhile, his relationship with Carti has been more complicated, with Ye frequently airing grievances online, while Carti largely brushed them off, aside from a pointed “STFU” tweet. The two most recently clashed over an NBA YoungBoy collaboration.
The resurfaced clip arrives alongside In Whose Name?, a new documentary that has unearthed other behind-the-scenes moments from the making of Donda. For fans, it’s another glimpse into Kanye’s turbulent creative process, one where even his once closest allies weren’t immune to being cut.
