Nicki Minaj has denied her verse to be used on unreleased song ‘New Body’ after collaborator Kanye West publicly pleaded with her to clear the track.
The rapper announced he would release his joint album ‘Vultures’ with Ty Dolla $ign today (December 15), and is set to include features from Freddie Gibbs, Playboi Carti, Future, James Blake, and others. It was also recently reported it would interpolate Backstreet Boys’ ‘Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)’ and feature his own daughter North. However, the album has not appeared on streaming platforms yet.
Now, West has taken to X/Twitter to nab one more feature for the album. In a tweet tagging Minaj, West shared a screenshot of a text he sent to the rapper, reading: “Hi it’s Ye. May I call you about clearing new body on the new album”
. @NICKIMINAJ pic.twitter.com/gn9jijEpVD
— ye (@kanyewest) December 15, 2023
Minaj has since responded in an Instagram Live, saying: “Child, that train has left the station, OK?
“No disrespect in any way, I just put out a brand new album” she continued, referencing the recently released ‘Pink Friday 2’. “Why would I put out a song that has been out for three years? Come on, guys.”
Nicki Minaj says she will NOT be clearing her verse to Kanye West’s “New Body” for his new album.
– “That train has left the station.” pic.twitter.com/IN44WPmzZq
— She’s Fishy ➐ (@ShesFishy) December 15, 2023
The track has previously been teased by Ty Dolla $ign in Geneva; ‘New Body’ was originally set to feature on ‘Yandhi’, a Kanye West album that was eventually scrapped in 2018. At the time, the engineer for ‘Yandhi’ told XXL that ‘New Body’ was “Kanye, Nicki and Ty Dolla $ign [and] it’s Kim K-inspired for sure.”
He added that the album was about “female empowerment” and “go get your own bag type shit.”
YE, NICKI MINAJ, TY DOLLA SIGN
NEW BODY pic.twitter.com/7496ihIzUC
— Donda Times (@dondatimes) December 12, 2023
Minaj has also spoken about the track in a previous 2022 interview, saying: “The public adored ‘New Body.’ Like, ‘New Body’ is the biggest hit record that never came out.
“Kanye made me write my ‘New Body’ verse four times over in order to fit into where he was creatively and spiritually in his life, right, only to then, I go on the internet a few months later to see him on Drink Champs.”
She added: ”Everybody knows that’s the hit that got away … I think the ship has sailed for ‘New Body,’ everybody has come to love the original way they heard it.”
West has been embroiled in a number of controversies in the run-up to ‘Vultures’. Its title track referenced the anti-Semitic comments West has made in the past with the lyric: “How I’m anti-Semitic? I just fucked a Jewish bitch.”
Accusations of anti-Semitism were first levelled against West in October 2022 after he said that he would go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE”, whom he claims have a link with Black people. An ex-staffer at TMZ has also claimed that the rapper once praised “Hitler and the Nazis” during an interview with the site.
More recently, employees at Adidas working on his Yeezy line accused the rapper of drawing a swastika in their first meeting, which occurred around 2013. They also said he continued to express anti-Semitic sentiments in later meetings, including telling a Jewish colleague to “hang a photo of Hitler in his kitchen and kiss it every day to practice unconditional love”.
It was also reported that West wore a black KKK-style hood at one of the listening events for ‘Vultures’.
The post Kanye West asks Nicki Minaj to clear new ‘Vultures’ collaboration – but she refuses appeared first on NME.
