Kanye West has continued his string of all-caps rants on Instagram, adding Machine Gun Kelly to his current list of feuds alongside Kid Cudi and Pete Davidson.
It’s been a busy weekend for West. Yesterday (February 12), he broke the news that Cudi would not be appearing on his forthcoming ‘Donda 2’ album, citing his Kids See Ghosts collaborator’s friendship with Davidson (who is currently dating West’s estranged wife, Kim Kardashian). The pair became embroiled in a feud after Cudi responded to West – calling him a “fuckin dinosaur” – leading to an onslaught of since-deleted Instagram posts.
Though the first batch of those posts – which included a riff on the poster for Captain America: Civil War, with the characters changed to include himself, Davidson, Kardashian, Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift, Drake and more – have been scrubbed from the web, a new batch was posted today (February 13), with West opening up about his feelings that Cudi had betrayed him.
“I’m very community oriented,” West said in the first of 15 posts shared over the past five hours – all of which are written entirely in capitals, with Davidson seemingly referred to as ‘Skete’. “I love my friends I love my family the reason I asked Cudi to at least speak to Skete is because for years Cudi always made it seem like it was me and him against everyone now that I’m fighting for my family he not by my side this is bigger than music.”
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A follow-up post sported a photo of Cudi, with West declaring that he “would have never asked for the loyalty if it was never offered”. He asserted that he “love[s] Cudi and always will”, but claimed ‘Donda 2’ would be about “running back in that burning house”. West noted that he respects the fact “not everyone [is] gonna be ready for the smoke”.
The next three posts saw West take direct aim at Davidson, telling his fans to “look at this dickhead” and seeming to allege that Davidson once dated Hillary Clinton. For proof, he pointed to a post Davidson once made about getting a tattoo of the politician, wherein the Saturday Night Live mainstay thanked her for “being such a badass and one of the strongest people in the universe”.
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West followed that post up with another photoshopped poster – this time for Venom: Let There Be Carnage, with West’s face superimposed over Venom’s and Davidson’s face over Carnage’s, billed as ‘Fight Night: West Versus Davidson’ – turning his ire to Disney CEO Bob Chapek.
In the post’s caption, West wrote: “This aint about Skete people it’s about selling yall a narrative Skete just playing his part in Frozen 3 accept its not in the theaters this time its on Dailey Mail tell Bob and the entire Disney staff you waisted your money on StarWars and Marvel because even though it makes money you will never control the highschools no ones ever heard a Machine Gun Kelly song Bob.”
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Later down the line, West shared an image of a text from Davidson (as well as a shot of Davidson and Machine Gun Kelly acting in an SNL skit together), which appears to show Davidson extending the rapper an olive branch. Though the text can’t be read in full due to West’s cropping, it seems that Davidson promised he would “never get in the way of [West’s] children”, and assured him that “the way you guys raise your children is your business and not mine”.
Davidson seemed to closed the message out by alluding to himself meeting West’s children. The rapper was blunt in his response, sharing the photo with a caption reading: “No you will never meet my children.”
West then quashed fans’ suspicions that his Instagram account was hacked, sharing three photos of himself holding up a notepad that reads, “My account is not hacked.” He also tagged Michael Che – a friend of Davidson’s and fellow SNL star – declaring he would “double whatever [SNL is] paying you just so you don’t have to look at that pawn ever again”. Che responded with a handwritten note of his own, joking that he would “Rambo that whole building” if West bumped his offer up to include a range of outlandish benefits.
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In a subsequent post, West gave kudos to The Shade Room for “helping [West] to control [his] own narrative and not writing [him] off”. He continued: “When I get on my Gram Im not afraid to get sweaty or take a hit for my family this is not a rant this is called freedom of speech I am a form of media Bezos bought The Wall Street Journal and will still never have this level of influence no matter how many dinners he does with my wife and Sketer and Page Six stop using bad photos of me yall that whole office would die to go on a date.”
After finding that “Kanye” was trending higher than “#SuperBowl”, he shared another post telling Kardashian to “always remember West was your biggest W”. He wrote: “I didnt wake up and fight for my family to trend over the Super Bowl but it happened the Super Bowl brings families together.
“For everyone married hold your spouse close make sure they know how much you love and appreciate them because theres a Skete lurking in every dirty ass alley waiting to help destroy your family and walk around in Calvin Kleins around your children I wish my wife was with me and our children sitting at the 50 yard line.”
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West then took aim at those deriding him for posting too often, saying: “Here’s something I have to dispel meaning remove the spell that people are under why does a media outlet get to post 20 times a day but if I post that amount there’s something wrong isn’t Instagram our own personal media platform? So I can make stages float or set myself on fire but I better not Instagram 2 much? As I calmly take my kids to the game I love being in control of my own narrative.”
Meanwhile, West made a surprise appearance at the LA premiere of Netflix documentary jeen-yuhs over the weekend (February 11). Speaking to the crowd after the screening, the star addressed people trying to cancel him and DaBaby – who was with him – and revealed Apple Music had offered him $100million (£74m) to release ‘Donda’.
In a four-star review of the first part of jeen-yuhs, NME said: “With footage dating back to 1998, the story of West’s momentous move from Chicago to New York in search of a big record deal is caught on film by Coodie. He grants us access to West’s Newark, New Jersey home and follows the budding star on the streets and into the studios of NYC.”