Black Sabbath lead vocalist blasts controversial rapper for using a sample of his music without permission: He is an antisemite and has caused untold heartache to many.
Black Sabbath lead vocalist Ozzy Osbourne ripped rapper Kanye West for using a sample of his music without permission on Friday, saying he refused West’s request to use the music because of his antisemitism.
In a post on X, Osbourne wrote that West “asked permission to sample a section of a 1983 live performance of ‘Iron Man’ from the US festival without vocals and was refused permission because he is an antisemite and has caused untold heartache to many.”
He added that West “went ahead and used the sample anyway at his album listening party last night. I want no association with this man!”
Later on Friday, Osbourne’s wife and manager, Sharon Osbourne, said she was exploring options to resolve the matter.
“We are considering legal action,” she said in a statement quoted by Rolling Stone magazine. “Ozzy has not spoken to Kanye but our team have spoken with theirs.”
Rolling Stone noted that West later released the song without the sample of the Osbourne recording. The “Iron Man” sample was previously audible at the 1:45 mark of leaked audio of the track, and video of the song from a Chicago event on Thursday, in which West and Ty Dolla $ign held a listening party for the new album, includes the sample as well.
West, who now calls himself Ye, caused outrage in 2022 after saying during an interview that the Abraham Accords between Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain were signed because former White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, who is also Trump’s son-in-law, wanted to “make money” from the deal.
He later threatened to go “death con 3 on the Jews” in an apparent antisemitic Twitter rant. West followed this up by claiming that he can’t be antisemitic “because black people are actually Jew.”
West’s antisemitic comments caused a host of companies to cut ties with him, including Adidas, the Creative Artists Agency, Foot Locker and Apple Music.
West has since seemingly backtracked his comments, citing actor Jonah Hill’s acting in the 2012 movie “21 Jump Street”.
This past December, the rapper published a Hebrew-language post on Instagram in which he apologized to the Jewish community for the various antisemitic statements he had made.
Sharon Osbourne is of Jewish descent. She was born Sharon Rachel Levy and her father was Jewish while her mother was not, but she was nevertheless raised Jewish.
“We were brought up in basically a Jewish household,” Osbourne told The Jewish Chronicle last month. “My family, my father’s family, my aunt, my cousins, are all Jewish. And observant Jews who practice and love their religion. So Judaism is the only religion I have, and the only one with which I feel comfortable.”
Source: Arutz 7
