Kanye West has accused Universal Music of preventing him from buying his own masters in a new Twitter rant.
The 43-year-old rapper hit out at the record label for allegedly keeping him from buying his master recordings, as he claimed the company won’t tell him how much it would cost to purchase the recordings, and seemingly suggested the label was being racist as he tweeted "Black masters matter".
He wrote in a series of tweets on Wednesday (16.09.20): "UNIVERSAL WONT TELL ME WHAT MY MASTERS COST BECAUSE THEY KNOW I CAN AFFORD TO BUY THEM
"Everyone please cover me in prayer … I AM ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS PEOPLE ON THE PLANET AND UNIVERSAL WONT TELL ME WHAT MY MASTERS COST BECAUSE THEY KNOW I CAN AFFORD THEM … BLACK MASTERS MATTER (sic)"
In earlier tweets, the ‘Bound 2’ hitmaker seemingly suggested musicians have become "comfortable with not having what [they] deserve".
He wrote: "We’ve gotten comfortable with not having what we deserve … they allow us to have a little money from touring get some gold chains some alcohol some girls and fake numbers that feed our egos … but we don’t own our masters
"We our supporting other people’s kids … we could spend our whole life in the music industry but our kids gotta go work for another company when they grow up (sic)"
And Kanye insisted he is now on a mission to "change" the way the music industry operates, because he has "billions" in the bank to do so.
He added: "I am the only person who can speak on this because I made multi billions outside of music no musicians make billions inside of music I’m going to change this
"I know a lot of musicians are not allowed to say anything but I can’t be muted or cancelled so I’m going to say everything as always (sic)"
The ‘Heartless’ rapper then called for "fair contracts" for artists.
He wrote: "We sat back and watched Nick Cannon get canceled and we go to play ball in a bubble with black lives matter on our backs … brothers let’s stand together for real … there is no NBA or music industry without black people … fair contracts matter … ownership matters (sic)"
Kanye finished his rant by hitting out at Sony and Vivendi, before insisting he will do "everything in [his] legal power" to make sure his children – North, seven, Saint, four, Chicago, two, and Psalm, 16 months, whom he has with Kim Kardashian West – are the legal owners of his master recordings.
He fumed: "MY CHILDREN WILL OWN MY MASTERS … NOT YOUR CHILDREN … MY CHILDREN … MY CHILDREN … MY CHILDREN
"SONY YOU NOT OFF THE HOOK EITHER … ONE BATTLE AT A TIME
"EVERYONE AT UNIVERSAL AND VIVENDI PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT I WILL DO EVERYTHING IN MY LEGAL POWER AND USE MY VOICE UNTIL ALL ARTIST CONTRACTS ARE CHANGED STARTING WITH GETTING MY MASTERS FOR MY CHILDREN I WILL NOT STOP I PROMISE YOU IM AM PETTY AND VERY PERSONAL (sic)"