Kanye West Sparks New Feud With Beyoncé’s Mum Tina Knowles

Kanye West has left fans scratching their heads once again after posting a series of cryptic Instagram messages about Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles. The 47-year-old rapper seemed to launch an unexpected feud on February 25, sharing multiple posts that made little sense to his followers.

Teaming up with fellow rapper The Game, 45, Kanye appeared to be producing a song about Tina. He shared a video of The Game recording lyrics over the same song Tina had been serenaded with during her appearance on The Jennifer Hudson Show — a reworked version of Beyoncé’s hit Formation. Kanye simply captioned the post: ‘TINA BY GAME PRODUCED BY ME’.

Before that, he had posted a screenshot of what seemed to be The Game’s phone, showing a direct message to Tina featuring nothing but a banana emoji. Kanye added his own cryptic caption: ‘This Game’s phone’.

As if that wasn’t strange enough, he then posted the same banana emoji again with the caption: ‘Tear that monkey up’.

Fans flooded the comments, utterly baffled. “Ima be honest Ye, I have no idea what this is leading towards,” one wondered. Another wrote, “Context would be really brilliant.” Others just wanted him offline, with comments like, “Take Kanye’s phone away, please.”

It’s unclear why Kanye is suddenly targeting Tina, especially since he has a history of supporting her daughter, Beyoncé. He worked with her on their 2008 song Ego and, of course, famously interrupted Taylor Swift’s speech at the 2009 VMAs to declare that Beyoncé had “one of the best videos of all time”.

Kanye also had a complicated past with Beyoncé’s husband, Jay-Z. The two were close when Kanye produced tracks for Roc-A-Fella Records in the ’90s, but their relationship soured after Jay-Z and Beyoncé skipped Kanye and Kim Kardashian’s 2014 wedding. A few years later, Kanye publicly called Jay-Z out for not visiting after Kim was robbed at gunpoint in Paris. Jay-Z fired back in his 2017 album 4:44, and Kanye left Jay-Z’s Tidal streaming service. They eventually reunited at Diddy’s 50th birthday party in 2019, and in 2021, they collaborated on a song again.

But Kanye has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons lately. He sparked outrage earlier this year with comments about Nazis, insisting after “further reflection” that he’s “not a Nazi”  —despite previously praising Adolf Hitler and even attempting to launch a swastika-themed t-shirt. He claimed he’d been fascinated by the symbol for “over eight years” and complained that “no one seems to wanna produce me wittle t-shirt [sic].”

His troubling comments led to major backlash, with brands pulling his Yeezy merchandise. But Kanye continued to double down, claiming his remarks were “90 percent Jew proof” and insisting he wasn’t under “Jewish control” anymore. Despite the controversy, he boasted that he made $40 million the day after making those statements.