Kanye West was furious when Russell Crowe's pal mixed up the words to his song.

The 43-year-old rapper joined Russell and former South Sydney Rabbitohs rugby star Sam Burgess when he spotted them having a drink at the China Tang restaurant at The Dorchester hotel in London and played them a snippet from his 2015 track 'FourFiveSeconds' before it was released.

Russell's pal tried to sing along but Kanye got annoyed when he mixed up the lyrics.

'Unhinged' star Russell, 56, told Nova FM's Fitzy & Wippa: ''Kanye comes down because he'd heard I was there and he's like, 'Can I come and hang?'

''So he came down and we had a couple of dumplings or whatever. He brought his computer with him. He was just scrolling through a bunch of stuff he had been working on. 'Here's some design stuff I've been doing' etc.

''[Kanye said,] 'So, here's this song I recorded with Paul McCartney'. So he played it and it hadn't come out yet. And we were like, 'Yeah, it's great'.

''So he played it four or five times and at one point Sam is singing along except he doesn't really know the words.

''I could see a little twitch in Kanye's eye. I said, ''Sam, you know you're getting the words wrong? And the wrong day?''

''And Sam was like, 'It doesn't matter what day it is, man.' Then he was like, 'Kanye, Kanye, does it matter what day it is?'

''Kanye just looked at him across the table and said: 'Yeah, it matters what day it is'.''

Russell had previously met Kanye in Australia, when the rapper and actor discussed Kanye using material from Russell's movie 'Gladiator' for a project.