Key Takeaways
- Jay-Z rejected Kanye West's claim that his Chris Martin collaboration amounted to betrayal, saying Martin was already his friend and he had introduced the two artists.
- Discussing "Big Brother" on Jay-Z in 8, Hov called West's reaction "entitlement" and added: "We don’t own people… Whether you did the song first or not, who cares?"
- Martin appeared on Jay-Z’s "Beach Chair" in 2006, West's "Homecoming" in 2007 and Coldplay’s Jay-Z-assisted "Lost+" in 2008.
Jay-Z has finally responded to the claim made by Kanye West that he collaborated with Chris Martin to spite him.
In 2007, Ye dropped "Big Brother," a reflective track on his Graduation album that hears him talk about his relationship with Jay-Z. Among the lyrics, he raps: "I told Jay I did a song with Coldplay / Next thing I know he got a song with Coldplay."
West teamed up with the Coldplay frontman on his 2007 song "Homecoming," while Jay collaborated with Martin on "Beach Chair" from his 2006 album Kingdom Come and reconnected two years later on Coldplay song "Lost+."
Hov addressed Ye's grievance about him working with Martin on the seventh episode of HBO docu-series Jay-Z in 8.
"It's almost as if I betrayed him by having a song [with him]. Chris [Martin] is my friend. I introduced them," Hov told Rick Rubin in the special (via Parade). "But that's how he says it. The world hears that and you think, 'Jay foul, he tried to…' It's not off the table that I'm doing a song with my friend because you did a song. But that's the sort of thinking."
"Part of it is an entitlement," he added. "We don't own people. He could do a thousand songs with a thousand artists. Whether you did the song first or not, who cares?"
Elsewhere on "Big Brother," Ye also spoke about how he handled the situation by contacting Roc Nation co-founder Jay Brown instead of Jay-Z directly: "Shoulda talked to you like a man, shoulda told you first / But I told somebody else and that's what made shit worse."
Although Jay-Z has publicly distanced himself from West after making disparaging comments about his children, which he later apologized for, the 4:44 artist previously called the 24-time Grammy winner "one of the most brilliant creatives we're ever going to see."
