Kanye West, who officially changed his name to just ‘Ye’ last year, has caused a stir after publishing an Instagram post calling out Billie Eilish.
The 44-year-old American rapper, record producer and fashion designer defended his friend, hip-hop artist Travis Scott, from what he perceived to be Eilish’s mid-concert diss.
In the caption Ye refers to the Astroworld disaster on November 5 2021, in which a fatal crowd crush occurred at the Astroworld Festival in Texas, resulting in the death of eight people on the night of the concert and the death of two more people in hospital following the event. Scott has not performed since the incident during his set.
Billie Eilish paused her performance earlier this month at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena to calm the crowd while a distressed fan received an inhaler, stating “I wait for people to be OK until I keep going.” Although the 20-year-old singer and songwriter did not mention the deaths at Scott’s concert explicitly, Ye was not the only one who connected the two events.
However Eilish denied that her intention was to criticise Scott, commenting under Ye’s Instagram post that she ‘literally never said a thing about travis. was just helping a fan.’
Ye’s defence of Scott was based on his belief that he ‘DIDN’T HAVE ANY IDEA OF WHAT WAS HAPPENING WHEN HE WAS ON STAGE AND WAS VERY HURT BY WHAT HAPPENED.’ This interpretation of the incident does match with how the event is currently being approached as Scott has not been charged and a medical examiner found that the victims died from ‘compression asphyxia’ and so the deaths were ruled accidental. Yet the investigation into the Astroworld event continues, so it is as yet unknown who will be considered liable and how.
