After Ozzy Osbourne criticized Kanye West for using a Black Sabbath sample without permission, the frontman explained why he went public with his frustrations.
In an interview with Rolling Stone published Tuesday, February 27, the legendary rocker, 75, suggested, “Well, nobody else would f–king do it, did they?”
“With the current state of affairs, you don’t need anybody starting people on discrimination of any kind,” Osbourne continued. “It’s wrong. It’s just wrong. There’s enough f–king aggravation, and he shouldn’t say anything [like what he has].”
The Prince of Darkness was making reference to West’s history of antisemitism, which has included the 46-year-old rapper calling for “death con 3 on Jewish people” in an October 2022 social media post and professing his “love” for Adolf Hitler during a December 2022 conversation with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on his InfoWars talk show.
In December 2023, West apologized with a post in Hebrew which read, in part, “I sincerely apologize to the Jewish community for any unintended outburst caused by my words or actions.”
“It’s wrong if you don’t say anything about him,” Osbourne said of West. “I don’t want any of my work in any shape or form to be associated with anything like that.”
Osbourne first spoke out about West earlier this month when he caught wind of the rapper’s plan to use a sample of a Black Sabbath song on West’s album with Ty Dolla $ign, Vultures 1, after being denied permission. Osbourne has fronted the iconic heavy metal band since 1968.
Though Osbourne initially got the song in question mixed up — he thought West was using Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” when it was really the band’s song “Iron Man” — his outrage remained the same.
Osbourne called West an “ANTISEMITE” in a post on X February 9, writing definitively, “I WANT NO ASSOCIATION WITH THIS MAN.”
While West technically obliged Osbourne’s request, he found a workaround to keep the “Iron Man” sample intact.
Instead, West used a sample from his own 2010 song “Hell of a Life” from his album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which features a version of the guitar riff from “Iron Man.”
Osbourne’s wife and manager, Sharon Osbourne, was also critical of West’s behavior, telling Rolling Stone, “We get so many requests for these songs, and when we saw that request, we just said no way.”
“The simple thing is, we don’t want to be associated with a hater,” she continued. “To spread hate the way he does, it shouldn’t be allowed. All the excuses — he’s bipolar or whatever — doesn’t change that. It’s like, f–k you, basically.”
