Kanye West is well-known for his stringent studio regulations. He is rumored to have run a tight ship while producing his 2010 album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Years ago, a photo leaked of Ye’s studio’s walls with banners that read “No tweeting,” “No pictures,” “No blogging” and “No hipster hats” and other rules. Most recently, the hip-hop superstar allegedly imposed a dress code for his Donda sessions.
According to Big Sean, he once had to fire one of his friends when he made a mistake during an MBDTF studio session with Kanye West, JAY-Z, and Beyoncé.
During Thursday’s Drink Champs interview with NORE, the rapper said that his friend discreetly took a picture of Sean, Ye, Hov, and Bey in the studio and posted it to social media. When the news reached Kanye and Jay, they immediately instructed Sean to terminate his friend.
“We down there working on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in Hawaii,” he remembered. “I’m out there playing my role, but I brought my mans with me in case I needed anything, he was going to help hold me down … It’s good to have a support system, to have one of your homies there when you trying to contribute.”
“So anyway, I’m in a studio — it was me, Ye and Hov. Even then, I wasn’t trying to be thirsty or sneak a fucking picture. I’m here just taking it in mentally. He ends up taking a picture of all of us in the studio. Didn’t tell me. He ends up tweeting it and it gets picked up on AllHipHop and things like that.”
When Kanye and Jay-Z first noticed the leak, they assumed it was because of Big Sean. As a result, they pressured the rapper into terminating his friend and he had no other choice but to go along with it.
“I don’t know who saw it, but it got to either Ye or Hov’s attention and they thought it was me!” he said. “It didn’t make any sense because I wasn’t even really on at that time and it was like, ‘Kanye, JAY-Z, Beyoncé, Big Sean.’ People were like, ‘Who the fuck is Big Sean?!’ It looked like I planted this shit.”
He continued, “When we talked about, I told them, ‘I don’t even know what the fuck you’re talking about.’ I explained to [Kanye] who it was and he was like, ‘You gotta fucking fire him. We’ve all done this, we’ve hired the people that we love. But people were mad at you thinking that you were being thirsty. And it was your mans.’
“So I told [my friend], ‘I’m in a position where it’s Ye and Hov saying you gotta go. I’m sorry bro, we gotta figure out something else.”
In the end, Big Sean’s friend has done well for himself since being dismissed by two of the greatest rappers.
“But it ended up being a blessing in disguise,” he said. “He ended up transforming his life and being probably way more successful than he would’ve been in the position he was in. He ended up being a teacher and ended up impacting a lot of people’s lives and doing amazing, wonderful things.”
