Jay-Z and Kanye argued over the MAGA hat line on “Jail” weeks after Hov recorded his verse, and Jay is finally telling his side of the story in his new HBO series. In episode six of JAŸ-Z in 8, which aired Friday, October 2, Jay told Rick Rubin that Ye asked him to change the line and he flat out refused.
The line in question comes from Jay’s verse on “Jail,” the 2021 Donda track that reunited the Watch the Throne duo. In it, Hov tells Ye to drop the red cap and come home, a direct shot at the “Make America Great Again” hat Kanye famously wore during his public support of Donald Trump, including his 2018 visit to the White House.
I think we argued about this verse maybe two weeks after,” Jay told Rubin. “I was like, ‘This is why I didn’t wanna do this verse.’ It wasn’t easy.”
According to Jay, Kanye told him, “The red line is not making me comfortable.” Hov did not budge. “Sorry, I’m not gonna change it. That’s how I feel,” he said he told Ye.
Jay did not threaten him. He did not walk away mad. He told Kanye to take him off the record.
“I said, ‘I understand how you feel; you should probably take the verse off. If you feel strongly enough about it, I’m not gonna change it, but respectfully, you should take it off because this is your project. Everything on it should be the way you want it to be,'” Jay recalled.
Kanye kept the verse, red cap line and all. Jail” landed as the second track on Donda when the album dropped on August 29, 2021, and went on to win the Grammy for Best Rap Song.
Jay-Z and Kanye now agree on the basics of the fight. Ye first went public with it in April 2025, complaining about the bar in a since deleted post on X. Why did Jay Z have to say ‘no red hat’ on Jail,” Ye wrote. “That [expletive] tore me to my soul. We fought about it and he told me either leave that line on there or take my verse off.”
Where they split is the why. Ye floated the idea that someone else was behind the line. “Me wearing the red hat was the most stand out example of me going against ‘the program,'” he wrote. “Do you guys think he was instructed to say that?” Jay’s answer to Rubin leaves no room for that theory. The line stayed because it was how he felt.
Those posts came during a stretch when Ye was publicly airing grievances about Hov, including a post about Jay and Beyoncé’s younger children that drew heavy backlash and an apology from Ye.
JAŸ-Z in 8 marks Rubin’s documentary directorial debut, with the producer behind “99 Problems” walking Jay through songs from across his catalog. Two new episodes drop each Friday on HBO and HBO Max through the October 9 finale, part of Jay’s yearlong celebration of the 30th anniversary of Reasonable Doubt.
Jay-Z and Kanye have not released music together since “Jail.”
