Are Taylor Swift's "Karma" Lyrics About Kanye West and Scooter Braun? Here's What We Know
Taylor Swift just dropped her highly awaited Midnights album, sending Swifties into an investigative frenzy trying to decode what each and every lyric means. From obsessing over Joe Alywn's co-writing gig on “Sweet Nothing” to trying to spot the Easter eggs in the “Anti-Hero” music video, fans can't stop talking about Tay's new album. But one of the most buzzed-about songs is track 11, "Karma." Since the song's name was unveiled on October 6, Swifties have been wondering if the song is about Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, and Scooter Braun. Now that the song is here and we've endlessly hit replay, are the theories on what the song is about true? Keep scrolling for a possible explanation of Taylor Swift's "Karma" lyrics.
Is "Karma" About Kanye West?
Let's rewind to 2009, when the feud between Taylor and Kanye began. The "Gold Digger" rapper infamously interrupted Swift's MTV Video Music Awards acceptance speech for Best Female Video (which she won for “You Belong With Me”). Fast forwarding to 2016, the pair seemingly were cordial again, with Kanye reaching out to Taylor to get her approval for a lyric in his song "Famous." In July 2016, Kim Kardashian leaked a clip of Kanye and Taylor seemingly approving the lyric “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex.” Swift's reps later told People that "Taylor was never made aware of the actual lyric," and that she "Cautioned him about releasing a song with such a strong misogynistic message."
In March 2020, never-before-heard footage of the phone call made the rounds on Twitter, reinforcing Taylor’s claims that she wasn't told the exact lyric that would be included in the song. At the beginning of the video, Kanye asks Taylor to help promote the track, while preparing her for a “controversial” lyric. The line he asks Taylor for permission to use is a different version of the lyric we all know: “I feel like Taylor Swift might owe me sex.”
In the remainder of the 2016 call that leads up to the clip that Kim originally made public, we can hear Taylor expressing her uncertainty, saying, "If I launch it, it adds to this level of criticism. Having this many followers and having this many eyeballs on me right now, people are just looking for me to do something dumb or stupid, or lame. I feel like people would try to make it negative if it came from me. I try to be super self-aware about where I am and I feel like right now, I’m really close to over-exposure." The fallout and drama that ensued around "Famous" led to Taylor taking a year-long hiatus, despite Swifties expecting her to release an album that year. After all, Swift had dropped an album every two years up until that point, with Red coming out in 2012 and 1989 debuting in 2014.
Since Taylor had this pattern of releasing a new album every two years, some fans are convinced that there is an unreleased album called Karma from 2016 in Swift's vault of music. Observant Swifties have spotted clues over the years that there may be a missing album. In the music video for “Look What You Made Me Do” from Reputation, Swift is seen cutting off the wings of a plane with the words “TS6” on it (aka T's sixth album, which ended up being Reputation) and spray painting the word “reputation” on it as she sang the lines, “The world moves on, another day, another drama drama / But not for me, not for me, all I think about is karma.” Further proof: in the music video for “The Man” from Lover, a poster reading “MISSING: IF FOUND RETURN TO TAYLOR SWIFT” was taped up next to graffiti that reads “KARMA."
Is "Karma" About Scooter Braun?
Swifties know that the reason Taylor decided to re-record all of her old albums was that in June 2019, Scooter Braun bought the song catalog of her first six albums from Scott Borchetta of Big Machine Records.“This is my worst case scenario,” Swift wrote on her Tumblr in June 2019 when the news came out. “This is what happens when you sign a deal at fifteen to someone for whom the term ‘loyalty’ is clearly just a contractual concept. And when that man says ‘Music has value’, he means its value is beholden to men who had no part in creating it.”
“When I left my masters in Scott’s hands, I made peace with the fact that eventually he would sell them,” she continued. “Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine the buyer would be Scooter. Any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words ‘Scooter Braun’ escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to. He knew what he was doing; they both did. Controlling a woman who didn’t want to be associated with them. In perpetuity. That means forever.”
Braun then sold Swift's masters to private equity firm Shamrock Holdings in November 2020. Soon after, Taylor announced that she had begun plans to re-record her albums and told fans Braun had been trying to make her sign an ironclad NDA before any discussion of selling her work to her could occur. Publicizing Braun's conduct and choosing to release Taylor's Version editions of her past work decreased the value of the original recordings.
Let's take a deeper look at the meaning behind Tay's "Karma" lyrics.
Lyrics provided by Genius
[Verse 1]
You're talking sh*t for the hell of it
Addicted to betrayal, but you're relevant
You're terrified to look down
'Cause if you dare, you'll see the glare
Of everyone you burned just to get there
It's coming back around
While "Karma" doesn't directly address the Kanye drama, the lyrics emphasize the inner peace Swift now feels watching those who wronged her get their due, and Kanye has certainly faced backlash recently. Page Six announced that Balenciaga has cut ties with West following the rapper's anti-semitic remarks.
[Pre-Chorus]
And I keep my side of the street clean
You wouldn't know what I mean
[Chorus]
'Cause karma is my boyfriend
Karma is a god
Karma is the breeze in my hair on the weekend
Karma's a relaxing thought
Aren't you envious that for you it's not?
Sweet like honey, karma is a cat
Purring in my lap 'cause it loves me
Flexing like a goddamn acrobat
Me and karma vibe like that
Kanye has referred to himself as a God in the past — namely, on his 2013 sixth studio album Yeezus in the song "I Am a God."
[Verse 2]
Spider boy, king of thieves
Weave your little webs of opacity
My pennies made your crown
Trick me once, trick me twice
Don't you know that cash ain't the only price?
It's coming back around
In March 2022, Insider published a profile titled “The many faces of Scooter Braun” which explored Braun's controversial business actions. A source close to Taylor disagreed with Braun's attorney depicting that Braun and Swift were on good terms because they were photographed “dancing together in Taylor's photo booth at a private Billboard afterparty in recent years [2015],” according to Insider. “If Scooter is trying to insinuate they were friends, it would have been the ‘friendly’ thing to do to ask her if she was okay with him buying her entire life's work out from under her,” the Swift source told the publication. “He did not do that. Obviously, any photo taken with him was before Taylor found out all the details and the full extent of some things that had gone down.”
Braun is an investor in the lifestyle and gaming brand 100 Thieves, which Taylor seems to reference with the lyric, “Spiderboy, king of thieves / Weave your little webs of opacity / My pennies made your crown.”
[Pre-Chorus]
[Chorus]
[Bridge]
Ask me what I learned from all those years
Ask me what I earned from all those tears
Ask me why so many fade, but I'm still here
(I'm still here, I'm still here)
[Breakdown]
'Cause karma is the thunder
Rattling your ground
Karma's on your scent like a bounty hunter
Karma's gonna track you down
Step by step, from town to town
Sweet like justice, karma is a queen
Karma takes all my friends to the summit
Karma is the guy on the screen
Coming straight home to me
[Chorus]
[Outro]
Karma is my boyfriend
Karma is a god (Ah)
Uh-huh, mm
Karma's a relaxing thought
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