Despite their longstanding beef, Kanye West vowed to help Taylor Swift get her rights over her past music catalog. The presidential hopeful's Twitter-spree rant against record labels and publishers continued, although some of his tweets were already deleted.
In a tweet on Friday, Sept. 18, West promised that he would "personally see to it" that Swift would get her masters back. The 30-year-old star had an infamous legal battle against Scooter Braun after her former record label boss, Scott Borchetta, sold Big Machine Records to Braun.
Now, Braun held the ownership of all of Swift's recorded songs under the label. However, as West said Braun was a "close family friend," he might do something about it, Us Weekly noted.
Before West decided to help Swift, he started a series of Twitter posts earlier in the week, declaring all musicians would be free. This came after he revealed he wouldn't release any new music until his contracts with the publisher, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, and music label, Universal Music Group, still stand.
Despite his infamous feud with Swift, he called her out for help amid his "music industry gripes." He asked Bono if he could get a re-tweet after sharing screenshots of his recording contracts.
He also asked for a re-tweet from a certain Paul and declared his love for Drake Kendrick and said they needed Swift "right now." Later, the 43-year-old fashion mogul shared a video where he's peeing on one of his Grammy awards to show his protest against the music industry's practices, which he called "modern-day slavery." The tweet had been deleted.
His tweetstorm continued as he said 90% of record contracts were still on a royalty. The 45-year-old rapper explained a standard record deal is "a trap to never have an artist's recoup."
He also revealed all the record labels could make more money from artists' hard work by putting hidden costs, like distribution fees, in their contracts.
Swift's legal battle against Braun and Borchetta continues. She even called the deal her "worst-case scenario," E! News reported.
The "Betty" singer promised to re-record all of her old hits, from the albums You Belong with Me to Red, when she's already contractually allowed this November.
In an interview with Billboard last year, she said she had spent ten years of her life rigorously trying to acquire her masters outright. Sadly, she wasn't given a chance.
She even said she's willing to pay a lot and do anything to own her work "that was an actual sale option," but it wasn't given to her.
