Kanye West
Kanye West & Taylor Swift’s ‘Famous’ Lyric Phone Conversation
2016, Edited VersionKanye: OK, dope. You still got the Nashville number?
Taylor: I still have the Nashville area code but I had to change it
Kanye: For all my south side n***as that know me best, I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex.
Taylor: I'm, like, this close to overexposure.
Kanye: Oh well this one is, uh — I think this is a really cool thing to have.
Taylor: I know! I mean it's like a compliment kind of.
Kanye: What I give a fuck about is just you as a person, and as a friend.
Taylor: That's sweet.
Kanye: I want things that make you feel good. I don't wanna do rap that makes people feel bad.
Taylor: Um, yea. I mean, go with whatever line you think is better. It's obviously very tongue in cheek either way.
Taylor: And I really appreciate you telling me about it, that's really nice!
Kanye: Yea. I just felt I had a responsibility to you as a friend. I mean, thanks for being so cool about it.
Taylor: Aw, thanks! Yeah I really appreciate it. Like, the heads up is so nice!
Taylor: …things without like even asking or seeing if I'd be OK with it. And I just really appreciate it.
Taylor: I'd never expect you to tell me about a line in your song.
Taylor: And then the flowers that you sent me, I Instagrammed a picture of them and it's the most Instagram likes I've ever gotten.
Kanye: Relationships are more important than punchlines, you know.
Taylor: Yea. I mean, I don't think anybody would listen to that and be like, Oh, that's a real diss. Like, she must be crying about…
Taylor: You gotta tell the story the way that it happened to you and the way you experienced it. Like you honestly didn't know who I was before that.
Taylor: It doesn't matter if I sold 7 million of that album before you did that, which is what happened. You didn't know who I was before that.
Taylor: … that I can make these things happen and I have the ideas to do it and I create these things and concepts. And, like, I'm always gonna respect you.
Taylor: And I'm really glad you had the respect to call me and tell me that as a friend, about the song. It's just a really cool thing to do, and a really good show of friendship. So thank you.
Kanye: Thank you too.
Taylor: And you know, if people ask me about it, I think it would be great for me to be like, Look, he called me and told me about the line before it came out. Like, joke's on you guys, we're fine.
Taylor: You guys wanna call this a feud, you wanna call this throwing shade. But right after the song comes out I'm gonna be on a Grammy red carpet and they're gonna ask me about it and I'm gonna be like, he called me.
Taylor: …awesome that you're so outspoken and it's gonna be like, Yea, she does, it made her famous! It's more provocative to say, Might still have sex.
Taylor: …it's not. It doesn't matter to me. There's not one that hurts my feelings and one that doesn't.2020 LeakKanye: —old school s—, yeah. I’m doing great. I feel so awesome about the music. The album’s coming out Feb. 11. I’m doing the fashion show Feb. 11 at Madison Square Garden and dropping the album Feb. 12, that morning. It’s like …. yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Aw thank you so, so much. Thank you. It feels like, real. I don’t know, just ‘Ye, Apple, Steve Jobs-type music. Like, so my next single, I wanted you to tweet it … so that’s why I’m calling you. I wanted you to put the song out.
Taylor: What would people … I guess it would just be, people would be like, “Why is this happening?” And I had something to do with it, probably.

Kanye: The reason why it would happen is because it has a very controversial line at the beginning of the song about you.

Taylor: What does it say? [nervous laughter]

Kanye: It says, and the song is so, so dope, and I literally sat with my wife, with my whole manager team, with everything, and try to rework this line. I’ve thought about this line for eight months, I’ve had this line and tried to rework it every which way, and the original way that I thought about it is the best way, but it’s the most controversial, so it’s gonna go Eminem a little bit, so can you brace yourself for a second?

Taylor: Yeah…

Kanye: Okay, alright. It says—wait a second, you sound sad.

Taylor: Well, is it gonna be mean?

Kanye: No, I don’t think it’s mean.

Taylor: Okay, then let me hear it.

Kanye: Okay, um … and the funny thing is when I first played it and my wife heard it, she was like “Huh? What? That’s too crazy, blah, blah, blah.” And when Ninja from Die Antwoord heard it, he was like, “Oh God, this is the craziest sh—! This is why I love Kanye,” that kind of thing. It’s like my wife’s favorite f—ing line. I just wanted to give you some premise of that, right?

Taylor: Okay.

Kanye: So it says, “To all my Southside n— that know me best/ I feel like Taylor Swift might owe me sex.” [chuckles]

Taylor: [chuckles] That’s not mean.
Kanye: Okay. Yeah, well, this is the thing why I’m calling you because you got an army. You own a country of motherfucking two billion people, basically, that if you felt that it’s funny and cool and like hip hop and felt like, you know, just The College Dropout and the artist like, ‘Ye that you love, then I think that people would be like way into it, and that’s why I think it’s super genius to have you be the one that says, ‘Oh, I like this song a lot, like, yeah, whatever. This is cool. Whatever, it’s like, I got like s— on my album where I’m like, “I bet me and Ray J will be friends if we ain’t love the same bitch.”

Taylor: Oh my [laughs]. I mean, I need to think about it because you hear something for the first time, you need to think about it because it is absolutely crazy. I’m glad it’s not mean though. It doesn’t feel mean, but like, oh my God, the build-up you gave it. I thought it was gonna be like that stupid dumb bitch, like, but it’s not. Um, so I don’t know. I mean, the launch thing, I think it would be kind of confusing to people, but I definitely like, I definitely think that when I’m asked about, of course I’m gonna be like, “Yeah, I’m his biggest fan. I love that. I think it’s hilarious,” but um, I’ll think about it.

Kanye: Yeah, you don’t have to do—you don’t have to do the launch and retweet. That’s just an extra idea that I had, like, but if you think that that’s cool, then that’s cool. If not, we are launching the shit like on just GOOD Fridays, on Soundcloud, the site, shit like that.

Taylor: You know, the thing about me is like, anything that I do becomes a feminist think-piece, and if I launch it, they’re gonna be like, “Wow,” like this thing—like they’ll just turn it into something that … I think if I launch it, it honestly like, it’ll be less cool ‘cause I think if I launch it, it adds this level of criticism, ‘cause having that many followers and having that many eyeballs on me right now, people are just looking for me to do something dumb or stupid or lame, and it’s like almost … I don't know, like I kind of feel like people would try to make it negative if it came from me. Do you know what I mean?

Kanye: Yeah.

Taylor: I try to be super self-aware about where I am, and I feel like, I feel like right now I’m like this close to overexposure.

Kanye: Oh, well, this one is uh, I think this is a really cool thing to have.

Taylor: I know, it’s like a compliment, kind of [laughs].

Kanye: I had this line where I said—and my wife really didn’t like this one because we tried to make it nicer. So I said, “To all my Southside n— that know me best/ I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex,” and my wife was really not with that one. She was way more into “She owes you sex,” but then the owe, the owe part was like the feminist group-type s— that I was like, “Ahhh.”

Taylor: That’s the part that I’m kind of—I mean, they’re both really edgy, but that’s the only thing about that line is that it’s like gonna … It's just, the feminists are gonna come out, but I mean, you don’t give a fuck, so…

Kanye: Yeah, basically. Well, what I give a fuck about is just you as a person and as a friend. I want things that make—

Taylor: That’s sweet.

Kanye: —you feel good. I don’t wanna do rap that makes people feel bad, like of course like I’m mad at Nike, so people think like, “Oh, he’s a bully. He ran on stage with Taylor. He’s bullying Nike now, this $50 billion company.”
Taylor: Why are people saying you’re bullying Nike?

Kanye: Because on “Facts” I said like, “Yeezy, Nike out here bad, they can’t give shit away.”

Taylor: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that’s just what you do though.

Kanye: [laughs]

Taylor: [laughs] I mean, I wouldn’t say that it’s like possible to bully a company like Nike where—I mean, um, yeah, I mean …