Kanye West Says He & Jay-Z ‘Fought’ Over MAGA Hat Lyric on ‘Donda’

Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) didn’t take a break from posting on X over Easter Sunday.

The controversial artist revealed to fans that he and his mentor Jay-Z had a falling-out over a lyric about him wearing the infamous red “Make America Great Again” Donald Trump hat. On the Chicago rapper’s song “Jail” from the 2021 album Donda, Jigga rapped, “Hol’ up, Donda, I’m with your baby when I touch back road/ Told him, ‘Stop all of that red cap, we goin’ home’/ Not me with all of these sins, castin’ stones/ This might be the return of The Throne.”

Apparently, Ye wanted to edit that line out, but Jay wouldn’t let him. “Why did Jay Z have to say ‘no red hat’ on Jail,” he wrote in a since-deleted tweet. “That sh– tore me to my soul. We fought about it and he told me either leave that line on there or take my verse off. Me wearing the red hat was the most stand out example of me going against ‘the program.’ Do you guys think he was instructed to say that?”

Ye started to affiliate himself with President Trump back in 2016 during the Saint Pablo Tour, when he told concertgoers that, had he voted in the presidential election that year, he would have picked Trump. Ye then started wearing the red MAGA hat around 2018, even as he faced backlash from peers and fans — one of those peers being Frank Ocean, who Ye said tried to talk him out of supporting Trump.

Last month, Ye was criticized for making comments about Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s 7-year-old kids Rumi and Sir Carter during an explosive X tirade, where West questioned the twins’ mental abilities and made unsubstantiated claims about in vitro fertilization. Suge Knight, Bey’s dad Mathew Knowles and more have spoken out against the hateful comments.