Kanye West has criticized former business associates adidas, designer Jerry Lorenzo from Fear of God, and individuals he claims are insincere friends.
In an extensive Instagram update on Tuesday (January 7), the rapper and fashion icon once more criticized his ex-Yeezy collaborator adidas, with whom he had a bitter separation in 2022 following antisemitic statements.
He started: “When you search for Yeezy.com, the adidas page appears before the Yeezy page. Members at adidas, stop this. Stop your actions to hinder me. Our collaboration is finished. You’re a 60 billion dollar entity that halted my accounts. Now I’ve regained my footing (no pun intended) and I won’t tolerate this (no pun once more).
“I delivered outstanding results for you all, and when I defended myself, you attempted to intimidate and suppress me. Everyone recalls the significant problems I faced with Adidas over design theft and oppression prior to ‘the tweet,’” he remarked, alluding to his notorious threat to go “death [sic] con 3 on Jewish people.”
Kanye then targeted Lorenzo, with whom he collaborated until 2016: “Everyone knows Jerry was unoriginal and disloyal for partnering with adidas after the way they treated us. I still attended his show, which mirrored my Hollywood Bowl show, trying to be the so-called bigger man, but I won’t do that again for anyone.”
He stated: “It’s Yeezy above all. Anyone who ever posed for a photo with me while having their own clothing brands and goals knows they were pretending to be my friends to market their inferior, fake Yeezy collections.
“They never genuinely intended to serve the king. They aimed to exploit the king, earn more than anywhere else, be yes men, and be content for any time I didn’t achieve what ‘we’ were striving for. Now they have been exiled.”
“NO MORE HUGS Yeezy above all I’m not a platform for others I’m here to conquer as I always do The Yeezy $20 price is destroying the industry leaving only Yeezy standing Everyone is aware that luxury fashion prices are excessively inflated I shouldn’t have even worn those Prada shades.”
Ye wrapped up by highlighting the success of his Yeezy brand after splitting from adidas: “Last year, Yeezy.com generated 100 million dollars, and that was just in 6 months because I took the site down for another 6 months to regain control over my Shopify accounts.”
“Individuals tried to convince me that I couldn’t achieve this independently. We have sold over a million pairs of pods, and I’ve been developing ten additional styles for the last two years. It’s Yeezy for everyone. Everything else was a distraction. If you spot any grammatical mistakes, please comment, and I will make corrections. Thank you.”
Adidas and Lorenzo have not replied to the post so far.
Kanye’s rant arrives only a few months after he and adidas decided to resolve their prolonged legal conflict outside of court.
“Both sides stated that we no longer need to engage in conflict and retracted all the allegations,” company CEO Bjørn Gulden mentioned during a conference call in October. “The contract excluded any payments.” Nobody is obligated to anyone anymore. “Thus, everything that has happened is now part of history.”
