You’ve probably seen the clip or the tweet by now. It’s one of those moments where you have to do a double-take, scroll back up, and check if the account has a blue checkmark or if it’s just another parody page. But with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, the line between performance art and brutal, uncomfortable honesty has always been razor-thin. When the song "COUSINS" dropped in April 2025, it didn't just rattle the charts; it set the internet on fire because of one specific, jarring confession: kanye gave my cousin head.
Honestly, people didn't know how to react. Was it a metaphor? Was it a deepfake? Given his history of using shock value to drive headlines, many assumed it was just another Ye stunt. But as the lyrics unfolded and the social media posts followed, a much darker, more complex story emerged about childhood trauma, family secrets, and a cousin currently serving a life sentence.
What Really Happened With the Cousins Track?
The song "COUSINS" wasn't just a random leak. It was a calculated, albeit chaotic, release that first appeared on X (formerly Twitter) before hitting streaming platforms. The track samples "Were There Originals" by Double Virgo and heavily interpolates "10 Percs" by Dave Blunts. While the production is vintage Ye—soulful yet glitchy—the lyrical content is what stopped everyone in their tracks.
In the song, West details an alleged incestuous relationship with a male cousin that started when they were children. According to the lyrics and West's own follow-up posts, the two discovered "dirty magazines" in his mother’s closet. Being kids and not fully grasping the sexual weight of what they were seeing, they started "reenacting" the images. This eventually led to the act mentioned in the viral headline. It’s a heavy, unsettling confession that leans into the "no double entendres" style that Dave Blunts, who co-wrote the track, is known for.
The Cousin in the Lyrics
This isn't just a story about a random family member. West identifies this specific cousin as someone who is currently incarcerated. This cousin is serving a life sentence for the murder of a pregnant woman, a crime that took place years after West reportedly ended their "reenactments."
In his characteristic style of self-referential guilt, Ye posted that he felt his "self-centered mess" might have contributed to his cousin's path. He wondered aloud if showing him those magazines at age six set something in motion. It's a massive leap in logic, sure, but it provides a window into how West processes his past. He feels responsible for the "corruption" of his cousin, even if the legal system and common sense would suggest otherwise.
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Kanye Gave My Cousin Head: A History of Family Betrayal
To understand why this latest confession hit so hard, you have to look back at Ye's history with his cousins. The family dynamic has been a recurring theme in his music for decades, but it shifted from the warm, nostalgic vibes of "Family Business" on The College Dropout to the paranoid, bitter lyrics found on The Life of Pablo.
Most fans remember the infamous laptop story. On the track "Real Friends," Ye raps:
"I had a cousin that stole my laptop that I was fuckin' bitches on / Paid that nigga 250,000 just to get it from him."
That wasn't just a line. It was a real-life extortion plot. Lawrence Franklin, another one of Kanye's cousins, later confirmed the story to the Daily Mail. Apparently, Kanye had gifted a laptop to a family member in 2012, unaware that it contained a private sex tape. Another cousin got hold of it and essentially held the footage hostage.
The $250,000 Ransom
The fallout from the laptop incident was massive.
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- The Payment: Ye reportedly paid $250,000 to get the device back.
- The Trust Break: Family members say this was the moment Ye stopped trusting his inner circle.
- The Public Diss: He famously called the cousin a "dirty motherfucker" on the track "No More Parties in LA."
When you look at "COUSINS" through the lens of this history, the song feels like the final bridge being burned. It’s no longer just about stolen electronics or money; it’s about exposing the most private, traumatic corners of the family tree.
Why This Song Is Different From His Previous Work
For years, Ye was a champion for the LGBTQ+ community in a way few rappers were in the early 2000s. Back in 2005, he sat down with Sway Calloway and famously told the world to "stop it" with the homophobia in hip-hop. He mentioned then that finding out his own cousin was gay changed his entire perspective.
However, "COUSINS" doesn't feel like a statement on sexuality. In the lyrics, West explicitly says he is "not attracted to a man." Instead, the song portrays the encounter as a byproduct of environment and lack of guidance. It’s a messy, nuanced take that defies the typical "coming out" or "experimental" narratives. He’s essentially reclaiming a narrative that he feels has been hanging over his head for years, choosing to put the "gross" details out there himself rather than letting them leak.
The Dave Blunts Influence
You can't talk about this song without mentioning Dave Blunts. The underground artist’s "blunt" approach is all over this track. Blunts has stated in interviews that Ye chose him specifically because he doesn't use metaphors. If something happened, he says it happened.
There’s a raw, almost amateurish quality to the second half of the song, which transitions into a segment about West's highly publicized struggle with nitrous oxide and his relationship with Bianca Censori. It’s a collage of his current life and his oldest traumas, stitched together with AI-generated audio deepfakes and distorted samples.
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The Public and Critical Reaction
As you’d expect, the reaction was polarized. Some critics called it "brave" and "freeing," an artist finally purging his demons. Others found it exploitative and unnecessary, especially considering the cousin in question is in prison and cannot tell his side of the story.
The song was actually removed from Spotify in late 2025, adding to its "forbidden fruit" status online. This only made the lyrics go more viral on TikTok and X, where "kanye gave my cousin head" became a shorthand for the rapper’s unpredictable nature.
Impact on the Family
The ripple effects within the West family have been quiet but likely devastating. Kim Kardashian had previously touched on the family's trauma during her Justice Project documentary, mentioning a cousin with a double life sentence. But she never touched on the specifics that Ye laid bare in 2025. This kind of "radical honesty" often leaves a trail of collateral damage, and in this case, it effectively ended any remaining ties Ye had with that side of his family.
Final Takeaways on the "Cousins" Controversy
If you're trying to make sense of the "kanye gave my cousin head" headline, you have to look at it as a piece of a much larger puzzle. It’s about a man who has spent twenty years in the spotlight and has decided that the only way to stay "pure" is to reveal every "ugly" thing about himself before someone else can.
- It’s Not a Joke: While the internet treats it like a meme, the song is a literal account of childhood sexual experimentation and trauma.
- The Laptop Link: This is the latest chapter in a decades-long saga of family betrayal that started with a $250,000 blackmail attempt.
- The Legal Side: The cousin mentioned is a real person serving life for murder, adding a layer of true crime to the musical confession.
- Musical Shift: This marks a move toward "ultra-realism" in Ye's music, where metaphors are replaced by jarring, literal statements.
Whether you find it moving or repulsive, the story behind the lyrics is a reminder that the "Old Kanye" and the "New Ye" are both products of a very complicated family history.
To understand the full scope of this era, you should look into the production credits of the In a Perfect World album sessions. Researching the work of Dave Blunts and the "10 Percs" interpolation will give you a better idea of how the song’s aggressive, literal tone was developed. You might also want to track down the archival interviews from 2016 regarding the stolen laptop to see how the "cousin" narrative has evolved from financial theft to personal confession.