Ice Cube has responded to comments Kanye West made about him during his recent inflammatory appearance on Drink Champs.
While Ye made a number of controversial remarks during his three-and-a-half-hour sitdown with N.O.R.E. and DJ EFN, he spoke about his recent antisemitic comments, and credited Ice Cube for putting him on his current “vibe.”
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“Cube’s really set me up for this,” Ye said before addressing him directly: “You’ve really influenced me to get on this antisemite vibe. I’m here to finish the job.”
“I hate that my name was dragged into this Drunk Champs bullshit,” Cube replied on Twitter. “I don’t know what Ye meant by his statements, you’re gonna have to ask him. I didn’t put the batteries in his back. Please leave my name out of all the antisemitic talk. I’m not antisemitic and never have been.”
Ice Cube’s comments come as he’s been trailed by allegations of antisemitism for years. He’s previously been an outspoken supporter of Louis Farrakhan, a prominent anti-semitic religious leader, and in 2015 was accused of ordering his entourage to assault a rabbi.
At the peak of the pandemic in 2020, Cube again came under fire for sharing numerous memes that suggested Jews were responsible for disruption within the country. He responded by calling the memes “pro-Black.”
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Elsewhere in Kanye’s problematic interview with Drink Champs, he referred to rap peers like Diddy and Meek Mill as “fake hard n-ggas,” and said even more scathing remarks about “the Jewish people.” He at one point even suggested George Floyd was killed by fentanyl, and not by ex-cop Derek Chauvin kneeling on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
In an interview with Hot 97 on Monday (October 17), N.O.R.E. called the fallout from his Kanye interview a “learning experience.”
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“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can sit there and say, ‘That’s only Kanye West, it’s only what he said.’ But I have a responsibility when I have an audience … When I watched myself, I was embarrassed. I was like, ‘Wait a minute? You just let him say that?!’ I’m irresponsible for letting it go.”
He added, “I still believe people have a right to speak, whether it’s something you agree with or not, but you have a right to also check them — and check them immediately. That’s what I regret.”
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Kanye’s Drink Champs interview is just the latest in a string of controversial interviews the Yeezy mogul has given these past few weeks. He also sat down for an interview with Fox News earlier in October where he made more claims about Jewish people, and discussed the controversy surrounding his White Lives Matter t-shirt, which he debuted during the YZYSZN9 fashion show at Paris Fashion Week.
Funk Flex offered a call to action to other rappers on his Monday (October 17) show, and demanded artists do better in calling out Ye.
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“I know the rappers [are like], ‘Well, we don’t wanna give it any fuel.’ You’re a liar,” Flex said. “You rappers are liars! All you have to do is really say your thoughts without mentioning Kanye’s name, but you don’t because you might do business with him down the line, you want a feature. I have not seen one person tied to his label, signed to his label, who has a feature, anybody that works in his office, say anything that what Kanye said was bananas.”
