Talib Kweli Posts Kanye West’s Ghostwriters in Response to Diss

Talib Kweli is firing some shots of his own after being dissed by Kanye West during ‘Ye’s recent Drink Champs interview.

On Friday night (Nov. 12), the Black Star rapper delivered some next level shade at Kanye by bigging up several of the Chicago rapper’s supposed ghostwriters on Instagram. In the post, Talib added a series of photos including CyHi The Prynce, Lupe Fiasco, Pusha-T, Pardison Fontaine, Consequence, Rhymefest, Fonzworth Bentley, GLC, Malik Yusef and John Legend. Talib captioned the pictures, “Kanye West Ghostwriter Appreciation Post. ✊✊✊ #VoltronRap,” in reference to the 1980s cartoon centered around five space explorers who come together to form one super machine.

Yusef defended Kanye’s honor in the comment section, downplaying his role as ghost pen. “I wouldn’t consider myself a ‘ghost’ writer,” he typed. “I’d preferred term co-collaboration expert, I know that Ye loves U, and so do U.” Yusef went on to say Kanye could make an album totally by himself but chooses to collab with other artists for the spirit of the game. He ended the post with the hashtag #kanyewestforpresident.

Talib responded to Yusef’s comment, “I agree that Ye is more talented enough to write a whole album on his own with no help. He doesn’t tho. So he shouldn’t be shitting on the skills of those who do.”

GLC also commented under the post saying he never wrote “for” Kanye. He did, however, admit to writing “with” Kanye. Talib responded, “Rappers who need other rappers to write with them should hush when asked to rate my pen. That’s on God.”

Drink Champs host N.O.R.E. also commented under the photos adding, “Petty lol.”

“I don’t have a problem with ghostwriters give them they flowers, Talib responded.

Just a few hours earlier, Talib shared another lengthy post about his feelings on Kanye. “So apparently @kanyewest wants me to tell y’all about the last couple of times we hung out,” he captioned a group photo of himself, Kanye, Ye’s manager Bu, 88-Keys and designer Don C. “Ok. Here’s pics from the last couple of times we hung out, the first is from last year, the second is from just last month. In these hang out sessions many things happened… here’s a short list…Kanye came to get 88 Keys who was staying with me and invited me to breakfast with them. We had a good talk that day. Kanye told me that he has a severe drinking problem, he said his butler would bring him grey goose first thing in the morning. Then he tried to convince me to stop drinking. So it was weird to see him throwing back shots on @drinkchamps. I played Kanye the new unreleased Black Star album. He said it was the best thing he’s heard since Dark Fantasy. So it was weird to hear him say he never liked my raps on @drinkchamps.”

Talib went on to say Kanye’s private conversations don’t match up with his public persona. “Kanye privately told me that he no longer supports Trump but then continued to publicly show support for Trump,” Talib added. “He blamed his support for Trump on Rick Rubin. He also said that Rick Rubin is the one who told him to link with Candace Owens. I thought it was weird for him to pass the buck like that.”

Talib continued, “When I saw [Kanye] on my birthday at Dave’s show, just last month, he was warm and gracious. He came by himself no entourage or security, that was dope. I was djing and he sat next to me sometimes mouthing the words to his old songs and smiling when I dropped songs that he’s sampled. I did however have mass Brooklyn dudes with classic baseball caps with me that day tho, so maybe he wanted to say he didn’t like my raps but choose not to due to that. He mentions this on Drink Champs. Funny thing is tho all my squad including me got love for Ye. None of us love his drunk rhetoric tho.

“The baseball hat jab is hilarious. The disrespect of my rhyme skills is subjective opinions. None of that matters to me. What does matter to me is truth and accountability. Kanye is an amazing artist but MAGA is terrorism. January 6th proved that. No amount of deflection changes that fact. ✊✊✊. I say all this to say, apology accepted Ye .”

Talib was one of the people whom Kanye inexplicably dissed during his infamous two-part interview on Drink Champs. “Kweli be gettin’ up, and like, ‘Come back home.’ Home where, nigga?” Kanye snapped during part one of the interview. “If I’d be like you, Kweli, I’d be where you at. Now if you take the average—99 percent of people—say, ‘Do you wanna be Kweli, or do you wanna be Ye?’ More people gonna wanna be Ye!”

Talib’s name came up again on part two of the interview when Kanye was apologizing to the backpack community for appropriating them early on in his career. “I apologize, once again, to Kweli, I’m sorry I never fucked with your raps,” Kanye said.  “Oh shit, I did just see that nigga. I totally forgot. Oh man, now I’m really gonna have to fight this man. Or it’s gonna be 10 niggas with fitted caps from 12 years ago chasing me.”

Talib isn’t the only person who took exception to things Kanye said on the podcast. Last week, Soulja Boy went off on ‘Ye in response to the Chicago rapper revealing he didn’t think the verse SB provided for Donda was good. Kanye and SB have since made amends.