Kid Cudi is reflecting on his famously strained relationship with Kanye “Ye” West after the pair reunited last year. In an interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music, the musician shared an update on the pair’s friendship after publicly squashing their beef.
The Cleveland-born rapper compared their years-long friendship to the bond between brothers, noting that fights and reconciliation are inevitable.
“Siblings hurt you the most. So you go through things, but family is always there,” the Entergalactic star said about his connection to Kanye. “You don’t give up on family. And I think in the thick of it, when it was going down, I wanted to walk away. I wanted to give up, but in thinking about it the past couple years, it’s like this is someone who is my brother ultimately who came into my life and championed me and did things for me that nobody else did for me early on in my career.”
Cudi and West have been close since 2008, when the Donda 2 artist signed the then-up-and-comer to his G.O.O.D. Music imprint. The rappers have been frequent collaborators, featuring on several songs together and even dropping a collaborative album, Kids See Ghosts, in 2018.
The duo’s close friendship came to a halt when they had a public falling out over Cudi’s friendship with Saturday Night Live alum Pete Davidson — who famously dated West’s ex-wife, Kim Kardashian. Despite Davidson and Kardashian calling it quits after nine months of dating, the rappers were still on the outs, with Cudi telling Esquire it would take “a motherf**king miracle” for him and West to rekindle their friendship.
But things had seemingly taken a turn for the better when they reunited last month during a listening session for West’s highly anticipated joint project with Ty Dolla $ign, Vultures.
“He’s learning and he’s growing,” Cudi said of West. “He knows he made some mistakes and I think that that’s the beauty of it, is this is a beautiful thing. It’s like he knows he’s been on one hell of a ride and he knows he’s said some things that he might not be able to come back from in a lot of realms, in a lot of spaces from certain people. But we grow and I think I pray for him, and that’s my brother.”
The INSANO artist admitted that while he and West have grievances, there is no bad blood between them. He called the father of three a “good man” with a soul, and proclaimed that he refuses to give up on West.
“The reason why we became cool again is because he apologized to me and it was sincere. I was just like, wow,” Cudi shared. “Kanye does not apologize to anybody and say sorry to anyone. And that’s my brother, man. various and there’s just nothing like Kanye and Cudi. We like the duo that everybody loves to see.”
Watch Kid Cudi’s interview with Lowe below.
