Kanye West met with Adidas executives recently to review their partnership. Kanye and Adidas teamed up in 2013 to release the famous Yeezy sneaker brand. According to the terms of their partnership, Kanye owns 100% of the Yeezy brand and has complete control over the creative side of things, while Adidas was to be the producer and distributor. These terms were supposedly breached when Adidas launched their “Yeezy Day” campaign from August 2nd to 3rd this year without consulting Kanye first. Further, Kanye claims they stole some of his designs.
During the extremely uneasy exchange, made public in a YouTube documentary he released on October 10th entitled “Last Week,” Kanye played clips from a porno video for the execs.
He compares one of their voices to the accent of the male pornstar in the adult film. The unorthodox move was meant to be more than just creepy, though. It was actually a calculated play by Kanye. It’s revealed he likens the Adidas executive to the guy in the video because the video is about cheating. He’s effectively calling the executive a cheat.
One of the individuals accompanying Kanye during the meeting addresses the tension Kanye strategically built. “What you’re feeling right now is extreme discomfort, and that is exactly the point. Because when someone steals this man’s ideas, his creations, it’s like you’re stealing a child. These are all children of his mind, and you’ve kidnapped them.”
As the meeting continues, Kanye stands and gets in their faces, and his tone grows increasingly agitated. He then not so vaguely threatens them saying, “our army is so prepared. You understand? This is a different level of nuclear activity that no one will recover from.”
On October 6th, Kanye announced that their partnership was ‘under review.’ Unless we see some serious repentance on Adidas’ end, the bold encounter and Kanye’s statement may very well signal an end to the nearly decade-long partnership between the self-proclaimed “King of Culture” and the clothing brand.
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