“I never gave my consent”

New (small) controversy for Kanye West? A video of around thirty seconds circulating on social networks shows the American rapper in the studio, listening and moving his head to what we can imagine to be one of his new tracks.

Some quickly recognized a sample – a musical sample of a piece, reused on a new piece – of Sun, sunfrom the album The Rifts by French singer Pomme, released in 2019.

The video was notably relayed on January 4, 2025 on X (formerly Twitter) by NFR Podcast, an account dedicated to hip-hop/rap news followed by more than 355,000 people. It has, to date, been viewed almost 1.4 million times.

But its origin remains unclear and it could have been taken without Kanye West’s knowledge, since theThe sequence ends with the artist turning around and seeming to realize that he is being filmed, before signaling to the author of the images to cut.

“No agreement”, according to Apple

In reaction, the Lyon singer published a message on her Instagram account on Monday January 6 to “clarify a situation”. A text in which she assures that she did not give any agreement on “a potential use of [sa] chanson […] on Kanye West’s next project.

I do not know the source of the video and audio content circulating these days on social networks, but I have never given my agreement to the use of this sample for reasons that seem obvious to me, having profoundly disagreed with the political positions of this artist whom I have greatly admired in the past.

The Pomme album on which the song appears won the Revelation of the Year category at the Victoire de la Musique in 2020. Crowned female artist of the year a year later, she became one of the new figures of the French pop.

Kanye West, controversial artist

For now, little is known about the Kanye West excerpt heard in the video. Now simply named Ye, he announced a few months ago an upcoming album titled Bully.

An artist recognized for his talent, the American rapper has caused controversy on several occasions in recent years. After supporting Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, he himself ran for the 2020 presidential election.

He was particularly singled out for anti-abortion and anti-vaccine opinions. Several anti-Semitic outings caused him to terminate his (juicy) contracts with Adidas and Balenciaga.

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