Yeezy

Kanye West Claims He’s Terminating His Deal With Gap For Violating Their Contract

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Kanye West has spent the past several weeks agitating against his business partners at Gap and now accuses the company of violating their contract with him in a letter sent to the company by his lawyer. According to CNBC, Kanye now wants to terminate the deal altogether, despite having four years left to go on the original term of the partnership. The main sticking point, according to West’s lawyer Nicholas Gravante, is the distribution of Yeezy products by the second half of 2021 and the creation of dedicated Yeezy Gap stores.

Per the original deal, Yeezy would be solely owned by Kanye, who would receive royalties and equity based on the sales. Pending the sales meeting certain targets, Yeezy stood to earn up to 8.5 million shares, with some sources valuing the partnership at nearly $1 billion. Although some Yeezy products were made available in Gap’s Times Square store in New York, Ye’s lawyers claim that they don’t count toward the terms of the partnership because they were a collaboration with Balenciaga — a separate deal altogether.

When the deal was signed with Yeezy back in 2020, Gap believed that the famous rap star’s cosign would boost slumping sales, but the quarterly earnings report released this August revealed disappointing results for the first half of 2022. Earlier this month, Kanye said he planned to continue the Yeezy apparel brand without Gap once the contract expired, but now it appears he’s trying to force that to happen sooner rather than later.

Kanye West Plans To Leave Adidas And Gap Once Their Contracts Expire: ‘No More Companies Standing In Between’

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Kanye West’s grievances with Adidas and Gap have been made readily apparent on social media by Kanye himself, and now he wants to “go it alone,” according to a new interview with Bloomberg. After accusing both companies of falling short in their obligations and stealing designs while making odd demands and stonewalling on product approvals, Kanye now apparently believes that he can fund his Yeezy apparel and footwear design, manufacture, and marketing himself.

Among his demands to his business partners are opening brick-and-mortar Yeezy stores (at a time when retail is moving more and more online), a 20% royalty from all the shoes bearing his name from Adidas (he already receives around $200 million in annual royalties and does not front the cost of research, development, or manufacture of the shoes), and chairs on both companies’ boards of directors.

While he acknowledges that both deals have been quite lucrative for him — his “billionaire” status is based largely on the long-term health of those deals and the royalties he receives from them — he is adamant that he can do just as well on his own. He also recognizes that these contracts both have long remaining terms; his Adidas deal expires in 2026, while his Gap one will remain in effect until 2030.

“It’s time for me to go it alone,” he told Bloomberg. “It’s fine. I made the companies money. The companies made me money. We created ideas that will change apparel forever. Like the round jacket, the foam runner, the slides that have changed the shoe industry. Now it’s time for Ye to make the new industry. No more companies standing in between me and the audience… They my new baby mamas. I guess we’re just going to have to co-parent those 350s.”

Diddy Joins Kanye And Swizz Beatz In Adidas Boycott, Vows To Never Wear Adidas Again

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Over the last week, Kanye has been vocal about his frustrations with Adidas, calling out the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Adidas, Daniel Cherry III, on IG along with the footwear giant’s executive board. Kanye also claimed that Adidas had tried to offer him $1 billion for Yeezy and even issued an ultimatum to Adidas saying that unless they abided by his terms, he would end his partnership with the brand today, September 6.

Following his string of posts on IG, many came in support of Ye, even Swizz Beatz who called Adidas copying Ye’s designs “DEAD WRONG.”

“I usually mind my business but this is DEAD WRONG! If we let them do this to @kanyewest it will happen to us also! This man created this groundbreaking innovation and it should be respected as a creative ! YE is only asking for his work to be respected and not stolen that’s not crazy to me !! We not buying these !!!!!!!!!!!! @adidas you’re supposed to be original do the correct thing please !!!” 

Recently, Diddy has joined the two in their Adidas boycott. He went on to post the text exchange between him and Kanye where he asked Ye if he could send him something that he could post on social media in support of Ye. In the caption of the post, Diddy vowed never to wear Adidas shoes until they made things right with Ye.

“Since the era of Run-DMC, @Adidas has always used Hip Hop to build its brand and make billions off of our culture,” Diddy said. “BUT WE ARE MORE THAN JUST CONSUMERS NOW, WE’RE THE OWNERS. @KanyeWest and @Yeezy are the reason Adidas is relevant to culture. WE KNOW OUR VALUE! I’m done wearing Adidas products until they make this right!! We have to support each other!! Everybody repost this please!!”

In a post on his IG yesterday, Kanye posted a message that seemed as if he had either left Adidas or the company finally gave into his demands. The message read “I could hear the joy in my teams voices today. Adidas don’t want no more smoke. The movie credits are rolling. This war wasn’t about money. It was about control of our families, of our business, of our story. I gave them the opportunity to settle this quietly. Now it’s time for Gap : )”

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Why Is Kanye West Upset With Adidas And Gap?

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Kanye West is rapidly becoming as well known for this growing list of enemies as he is for his music. What has been even more notable, however, has been just who he’s added to that list, which previously included musical rival Drake and now includes his former protege Kid Cudi and romantic rival Pete Davidson.

However, while he’s got inscrutable though understandable reasons for all of the above, fans can’t help but be confused as Kanye sets his sights on Adidas and Gap — two corporations with which his Yeezy brand is partnered, contributing to his touted billionaire status. For the past few months, the mercurial producer turned designer has been lashing out at his creative partners, from posting a fake headline trolling Adidas CEO Kasper Rørsted to accusing Gap of holding meetings about him without him.

So, why is Kanye so upset with Adidas and Gap?

The crux appears to be Kanye’s expectations of his partnerships with these companies and how they have failed to meet them in his eyes. In June, he posted an angry Instagram, calling Adidas’ Adilette 22 slides “fake Yeezys” for being too similar to the Yeezy slides. Then, in early August, he DMed Complex on Instagram, telling the account’s admin that he hadn’t approved Adidas’ Yeezy Day campaign. Meanwhile, fans were dumbfounded when he apparently ordered Gap store employees to yank his Yeezy collection from their shelves and hangers to present them in large, black garbage bags.

Now, he’s expressing plans to open his own independent Yeezy brand stores — something he said they are contractually obligated to do, but refuse to. Basically, he’s unhappy that both companies have made products that are similar in form and function to Yeezy designs while also following traditional business models in lieu of following his more radical intentions.

It remains to be seen if the leadership at either company — Rørsted is stepping down as CEO sometime this year — continues to put up with his agitating for very much longer. One thing is sure: Kanye is an unpredictable business partner who isn’t afraid to publicly air his grievances, whether it’s good business or not.

Why Is Kanye West Selling Yeezy Clothes Out Of Large Bags?

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Kanye West has been known for some unconventional rollouts in the past, but the way he insisted his latest Yeezy Gap collaboration be sold has even his staunchest fans flabbergasted. Kanye’s latest collection has his clothing clumped together in massive garbage bags on shop floors rather than hung or folded neatly on shelves. A now-viral tweet from a customer asserts that a sales associate explained, “Ye got mad when he saw they had it on hangers and this is how he wanted it. They won’t help you find ur size too, you just have to just dig through everything.”

Naturally, the question on everyone’s minds is: Why? However, it doesn’t appear that an answer is forthcoming. During a recent appearance on Fox & Friends, which normally loves to hate on rappers but seems to be making an exception for the Trump-supporting Kanye, the rebellious rapper said, “Look, man: I’m an innovator, and I’m not here to sit up and apologize about my ideas. That’s exactly what the media tries to do: Make us apologize for any idea that doesn’t fall under exactly the way they want us to think.” Not exactly an answer.

For what it’s worth, Kanye’s sometimes outrageous approach to doing things often flies in the face of tradition, but often becomes standard operating practice down the line. For instance, when he released The Life Of Pablo to streaming services only partially completed in 2016 and spent the next year or so tweaking things to his liking, he angered some fans who believed he was short-changing them. However, in recent months, stars like Lizzo and Beyonce updated their albums post-release to clean up some questionable language when fans protested. Since then, he’s innovated album releases further by putting out Donda 2 exclusively on his stem player device.

Could this spell the end of clothes hangers and dressed-up mannequins at retail? It probably depends on how well this strategy works out. As CNN points out, though, brick-and-mortar stores have been pretty consistently losing business in the face of online shopping, which is much more convenient. Ironically enough, when you buy clothes online, guess how they arrive. That’s right: In a bag.

Kanye West Is Mad At Adidas Again, This Time Over The Yeezy Day Promotion

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When you work with Kanye West, you have to take the bad with the good. Sure, the mercurial producer’s co-sign brings with it a legion of loyal (perhaps even lemming-like) fans who would spend a week’s lunch money on one of the man’s toenail clippings, but those guaranteed profits come with the probability that, at some point, you’re going to get on his bad side and wind up on the receiving end of one of his occasional reactionary rants.

Adidas has learned as much the hard way after Kanye accused the company of ripping off his Yeezy slide design for the Adilette 22 slides on Instagram (the post in question has since been deleted). Now, Adidas has apparently incurred his wrath yet again with its Yeezy Day promotion which is celebrated annually on August 2. This time, though, Kanye directed his comments to the Complex Instagram profile‘s DMs, accusing the company of greenlighting the unofficial holiday without his approval, in addition to bypassing him on colorways, employee hires, and re-issuing older Yeezy styles. He also accused Adidas of sabotaging his partnerships with Gap and Balenciaga. You can see his full statement below.

It should be noted that Kanye had similar complaints about Nike, and has an established history of … well, not reading his contracts thoroughly to know what rights and controls he actually has. He’s also been known to change his mind at the drop of a hat and he’s got a lot of plates spinning, so any company working with him probably isn’t exactly waiting on tenterhooks for his every dictate with deadlines to hit — something he’s also kind of notoriously bad at keeping up with.

Kanye Blasts Adidas For Doing Yeezy Day Without His Approval

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Today, August 2, is Yeezy Day at Adidas. Fans of the popular sneaker brand will get another shot at copping some of their favorite Yeezy styles from the last few years. Even though this aligns with West’s vision of making egalitarian clothing and for everybody that wants a pair of Yeezys to get a pair, Kanye basted Adidas for having Yeezy day without his permission.

In an DM to IG user @ChaseSeesGhosts, Ye claimed that Adidas came up with the Yeezy Day idea without his approval, and chose the shoes, picked the colors, named the shoes and stole his other style ideas. Along with going forward with Yeezy Day without Ye’s approval, Kanye also accused Adidas of other shady business practices.

“Adidas made up the Yeezy day idea without my approval then went and brought back older styles without my approval picked color and named them without my approval,” West wrote. “Went and hired people that worked for me without my approval stole my colorways without my approval went and hired a gm of Yeezy without my approval took talent on the production side and sprinkled them throughout adidas originals without my approval.”

Kanye was not finished there. He then accused Adidas of slowing down production on shoes for his Yeezy Gap x Balenciaga collection and lying to Kanye about not being able to manufacture more Yeezy slides but turned around and produced the Adidas slide, which Kanye has come out against, saying that it resembles a Yeezy slide.

“Even though they did a Balenciaga collaboration they completely slowed down production on the shoes me and Demna developed for Gap by trying to bully Gap even though my contract states I can do casual shoes which I was doing when I did fashion shows. When I originally ordered adidas to make more Yeezy slides the GM lied to my face and said they didn’t have the capacity meanwhile adidas was copying my slides and making their own versions of the Yeezy slide,” West said.

You can check out Ye’s grievances below.

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