As Beyoncé sings on “Formation,” “you know you that b-tch when you cause all this conversation.” Never forget that the Kanye West/Taylor Swift feud actually started over a Beyoncé song. Specifically, “Single Ladies,” which Kanye famously called “one of the greatest videos of all time” (“Imma let you finish…”) while, uh, snagging Taylor’s stage time at the VMAs. Now years (what feels like decades) later the saga continues, this time with Taylor’s director getting in on the action.
First, let’s start at the beginning, which was the 2009 VMA event. After Kanye interrupted her on stage, Taylor released her song “Innocent,” which may have been inspired by the awards show confrontation, and all seemed well for a few years (he even sent her flowers!). But then Kanye referenced Taylor in his song “Famous” and used her likeness in his video, prompting her to clap back while accepting a Grammy. That’s when Kim Kardashian took to Snapchat to explain that Tay had actually given her OK to the lyric… which Taylor then denied on Instagram, claiming that she hadn’t consented to being called “that bitch” in the song. When everyone came at the Reputation songstress after that (so many snake emojis), she kinda disappeared for a year. Until Friday, when Taylor dropped “Look What You Made Me Do” (here’s a more detailed timeline), the first single from her forthcoming album.
In addition to it being widely assumed that the song is inspired by her feud with Kim and Kanye, the brief clip of the song’s accompanying video — which, naturally, will drop at tonight’s VMAs where this whole thing started — that’s been posted online instantly stirred up Beyoncé-adjacent controversy when Twitter users speculated that Taylor’s look was just a little too close to that of Queen Bey in “Formation”. Now “Look What You Made Me Do” director, frequent T. Swift collaborator Joseph Kahn, has taken to Twitter to deny the connection, tweeting that he’s worked with both Tay and Bey and the new video is not in Knowles’ “art space.”
And you know what? Point taken. We haven’t seen the full “Look What You Made Me Do” video yet, and one similar image isn’t necessarily enough to reasonably call someone out for appropriation. But this isn’t the only pre-VMAs clean-up Swift’s camp is doing; they’ve also had to deny that the release date for Reputation — November 10, 2017 — was chosen as another slight to Kanye because it falls on the 10th anniversary of his mother Donda’s death. Big Machine Records told E! News, “It is standard practice that releases come out on Fridays and we locked in this release date based on other Universal Music Group releases.
The most compelling evidence that the video and release date aren’t swipes at Bey and Ye, though? The fact that they’re not obvious digs. Taylor is pretty clear when she’s writing or talking about someone in particular. She had a crush on a boy named Drew so “Teardrops On My Guitar” mentions a boy named Drew. Her song about John Mayer is called “Dear John.” People called Taylor a snake, so now she’s wearing and selling snake-shaped rings. If she wanted to use Beyoncé’s imagery, she’d be like, sipping lemonade, and if she wanted to piss of Kanye with her release date, she’d drop an album on his birthday or something. When Taylor is taunting someone, there’s very little guesswork involved.
Besides which, as much as she’s caught up in her feuds right now, Taylor doesn’t actually need other artists’ help to generate headlines. She’s as big a star as music has, and “Look What You Made Me Do” broke streaming records on both YouTube and Spotify on its first day of release. If the pattern holds, the video will be a monster hit, too. I guess we’ll see tonight…at the mother-frickin’ VMAs.
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