A resurfaced clip from Kanye West’s Donda sessions is stirring conversation about the creative rifts that later fractured some of his tightest collaborations.
The footage, now making rounds on social media, captures Ye playing a scrapped Pusha T verse for “Off The Grid,” his 2021 track with Playboi Carti and Fivio Foreign. Carti praises the verse, calling it “hard,” but presses Kanye on why it never made the album.
Ye’s response was blunt: “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 remark ties back to Ye’s long history of controversial takes on politics and activism, while also underscoring how shaky some of his industry relationships have become. His once-solid alliance with Pusha T under G.O.O.D. Music has unraveled in recent years, with both sides trading public shots.
His dynamic with Playboi Carti has been more erratic—Ye has repeatedly aired out grievances online, while Carti mostly brushed them off, save for a sharp “STFU” tweet. The two last butted heads over a collaboration with NBA YoungBoy.
The clip resurfacing now coincides with the release of In Whose Name?, a new documentary that pulls back the curtain on Donda’s creation. For fans, it offers yet another raw glimpse into Kanye’s chaotic creative process, where even his closest allies weren’t guaranteed a place on the final cut.
