Top 10 Biggest Kanye West Feuds

Hova and Yeezy go way back. Kanye first made a name for himself producing for Jay-Z’s Roc-A-Fella Records. When Mr. West struck out on his own, they remained close, even collaborating for 2011’s “Watch The Throne”. In 2014 however, Jay-Z and Beyoncé were curiously absent from Kanye’s wedding. And in 2016, Kanye launched into a rant on stage about how Jay-Z hadn’t called him after Kim was robbed in Paris, and their kids had still never played together. Jay-Z fired back by calling out Kanye’s antics on the 4:44 track “Kill JAY-Z”, and publicly stating that Yeezy had overstepped by bringing family into things. Only in 2017 did they reportedly return to being on speaking terms.

Most beefs in the music industry are between individuals, but Kanye West is the sort of man who’s willing to go up against an entire company - even one as massive as Nike. On December 31st 2015, Yeezy decided to usher in the new year by airing his grievances against the shoe and athletic apparel company with the song “Facts”. Before making the move to Adidas, Kanye was collaborating with the House of Swoosh. As he explained to Charlemagne the God in 2018, he left because they allegedly refused to pay him royalties on his shoes. He also went after the company on Twitter with since-deleted tweets.

Kanye loves fashion, but he seems to like fighting with shoe companies almost as much! In 2013, years before he took Nike to task, Kanye West honed his craft by going toe-to-toe with Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. As he told author Bret Easton Ellis during an appearance on the latter’s podcast, Hsieh apparently tried to give Kanye some unsolicited business advice, and Yeezy didn’t take too kindly to it. He claimed that Zappos sells “shit product”, and that for that reason the company’s CEO had no business giving him advice. Hsieh responded on Twitter, linking to a fake Zappos page that took Kanye’s description literally by featuring an overpriced toilet.

There was already cause for tension between these two rappers after Wiz married Kanye’s ex Amber Rose. In all fairness though, it was Wiz who started this beef. When Yeezy changed the name of his then-forthcoming album from Swish to Waves, Wiz suggested that the name had been appropriated from rapper Max B.’s term “wavy”. It was his unrelated tweet that said “hit this kk and become yourself” however that awakened the beast. Khalifa was referring to his trademark marijuana Khalifa Kush, but Kanye interpreted KK as Kim Kardashian, savaging Khalifa’s style, music, and relationship with Amber Rose. More on THAT further down the list.

In 2013, the same year he was trading blows with online retailer Zappos, Kanye also went after one of the biggest names in high end fashion, Louis Vuitton. Apparently he was upset when the company refused to meet with him in Paris as he’d hoped. While doing the rounds promoting Yeezus, he told Washington's 95.5 WPGC that he wanted his fans to boycott the brand as a show of his power and influence. He later backtracked, claiming he never called for a boycott, before doubling down by calling Louis Vuitton irrelevant and old. We suspect that his opinion has since changed, as in 2018, his longtime creative collaborator Virgil Abloh took over as their men’s creative director.

Kanye’s twitter rants tend to go for the jugular. When he squared off against iconic DJ Deadmau5 however, it was actually pretty funny - which is why this particular feud earns such a high place on our list. After Kanye posted a photo of his desktop screen, some eagle-eyed followers noticed that he had open tabs for torrenting site The Pirate Bay and Serum, music software from a company co-founded by Deadmau5. Ironically, Kanye had reportedly considered suing The Pirate Bay, after his album “The Life of Pablo” set records for illegal downloads. When Deadmau5 called him out, rather than address the issue head on, Yeezy cranked up his troll-dial to 11 - ridiculing the DJ’s mouse head. It was immature, but entertaining.

Late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel is many things, but mean-spirited isn’t really one of them. Yes, he make jokes and pokes fun at his fellow celebrities, but it’s mostly in good fun. And when he does call someone out, chances are that they deserved it. After Kanye gave a less than humble interview on BBC with Zane Lowe, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” staged a relatively harmless parody. Kanye’s response? An all caps blast that got insanely aggressive and weird. He then apparently called Kimmel and demanded a public apology. As you can imagine, this only provided more material for Kimmel, who responded by continuing to make Kanye the butt of the joke.

Whether she’s taking the high road, or knocking him down a peg with a single well-aimed tweet, few people best Kanye on Twitter like Amber Rose. For the record, she’s never really been the antagonist, but when Kanye feels the need to drag her name in the mud, she’s not afraid to put him in his place. When he claimed that he needed to take “30 showers” after being with her, Rose took a quick comparative shot at Kim and Ray J. Kanye dissed again during his beef with Wiz Khalifa, so she shot back that he must miss her playing with his butt. His insistence to the contrary didn’t really help matters. So yeah . . . don’t mess with Amber Rose.

Back in 2009, these two had nothing but praise for one another. But in 2011, Drake announced his ambition to surpass Kanye. Though this may have temporarily divided them, they’ve usually been mutually supportive. In 2016, Drake dropped some lines about having a bigger pool than Ye, but again, it all seemed pretty harmless; that is until Kanye produced the Drake diss track by Pusha T, “Infrared”. They might not have been Kanye’s words, but his involvement was enough for things to blow up. As it usually goes, Kanye has sent countless tweets since, asking for peace one moment, escalating the next, while Drake has kept his responses minimal, with a few lyrical jabs and an interview with Lebron.

Feuds come and go, but if there’s one Kanye beef that will go down in the pop culture history books, it’s Kanye West versus Taylor Swift. It began way back in 2009, when Kanye stormed the stage of the VMAs, interrupting Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech to talk about Beyoncé’s video for “Single Ladies”. He later apologized on Twitter, but there was understandably bad blood. In 2015 however, they seemingly buried the hatchet for real at 2015 VMAs. Sadly, it didn’t last long. With the release of “Famous”, and one obnoxious line in particular, this feud blew up bigger than ever. Considering the fallout, it’s hard to imagine these two ever reconciling.