Damon Albarn says Kanye West ‘trapped’ Paul McCartney in an ‘abusive’ collaboration

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Damon Albarn says Kanye West ‘trapped’ Paul McCartney in an ‘abusive’ collaboration
Andrew Trendell
Jun 28, 2018


Damon Albarn, Kanye West and Paul McCartney Credit: Getty

"Kanye West is all about Kanye West. He's like all people who feed off other people"

Damon Albarn has hit out at Kanye West for ‘trapping’ Paul McCartney in an ‘abusive’ collaboration on the track ‘FourFiveSeconds’.

The Blur frontman, who this week releases his new album ‘The Now Now’ with Gorillaz, was speaking to Fabrice Pliskin from French Magazine Nouvel Obs when he slammed the rapper for his treatment of The Beatles icon.

“Don’t get me started on Kanye West,” Albarn said, adding of West and McCartney’s collaboration with Rihanna on ‘FourFiveSeconds’: “I’ve got a problem with that abusive collaboration. Kanye West trapped Paul McCartney.”

“I see Paul McCartney in the video,” Damon added, “but I don’t hear Paul McCartney on the track”.

After arguing that Kanye just wanted to “have the name ‘Paul McCartney’ in headlines”, Albarn went on to say that he advised Sir Paul to avoid collaborating with the rapper.

“Before the collaboration, I sent Paul a text, [saying] “be careful”, because I personally felt that it was not an equal relationship… I just felt that Kanye was abusive.”

“But you know, he [McCartney] didn’t pay any attention to it. He is Paul McCartney, after all. And Kanye West is Kanye West. Kanye West is all about Kanye West. He’s like all people who feed off other people.”

After the journalist compared Kanye to David Bowie, Albarn replied that Bowie was “very different to Kanye West”. “I know all three of these people… Bowie, Paul McCartney and Kanye West,” Damon said. “I would say they’re all very different… to say the least.”




Macca recently described his experience of working with West, revealing he “was tootling around on guitar, and Kanye spent a lot of time looking at pictures of Kim“.

“We ended up just talking a lot,” said McCartney told DIY. “I played a few little things and one of them ended up as ‘FourFiveSeconds’ with Rihanna. It’s more a question of me feeling lucky that these people are interested [in working with me] and think that I can bring something to it. For me, I feel great. I like diversity.”


Paul McCartney and Kanye West

Sir Paul continued: “We had two or three afternoons where we just hung out together in a Beverly Hills hotel in the bungalows out the back, and he had his engineer and was set up with a couple of microphones in case anything happened,” he continued. “I was tootling around on guitar, and Kanye spent a lot of time just looking at pictures of Kim [Kardashian] on his computer. I’m thinking, ‘are we ever gonna get around to writing?!’

“But it turns out he was writing. That’s his muse. He was listening to this riff I was doing and obviously he knew in his mind that he could use that, so he took it, sped it up and then somehow he got Rihanna to sing on it. She’s a big favourite of mine anyway, so that just came without me lifting a finger.”