Andre Gee
Rolling Stone, Oct. 25, 2022
“Kanye theorized that the people who came out against him weren’t simply upset at his anti-Blackness, but that they were agents “sent” by Jewish people.”
I CAN SAY antisemitic things and Adidas can’t drop me,” the artist formerly known as Kanye West proclaimed on Drink Champs just over a week ago. “Now what?” he rhetorically asked, with the sneering audacity of a man whose millions of dollars, millions of fans, and substantial high-powered connections have carried him through numerous instances of public backlash over the past 20 years. But that day is over.
Today, Adidas dropped him after a month in which he’s consistently asserted that he’s up against a cabal of Jewish people who control the world. His Yeezy partnership with Adidas was the core of his reported $2 billion net worth; without that deal, his billionaire status has reportedly been “obliterated.” Kanye’s musical and entrepreneurial endeavors have always been fueled by him foregrounding a barrier, imaginary or real, to stride beyond. That defining trait was endearing until his crosshairs veered from those doubting his musical chops into Black people who criticized his MAGA ties, and now to Jewish people. His recent antisemitic comments, coming after a long stretch of constantly escalating spectacle-chasing, have finally made him too radioactive for his influential allies.
Adidas joins a long list of high-powered brands like JP Morgan Chase, CAA, Balenciaga, and Vogue that have severed ties from Ye in the past month. MRC has shelved a previously-filmed documentary about him. Ari Emanuel, CEO of William Morris Endeavor, wrote an op-ed calling for companies to stop working with Ye. UTA CEO Jeremy Zimmer also implored his partners to “please support the boycott of Kanye West” because “powerful voices spewing hatred have frequently driven people to do hateful things.”
This latest torrent of controversy began with the strong negative response elicited by the “White Lives Matter” T-shirts that Ye wore alongside conservative pundit Candace Owens at his Yeezy Season 9 fashion show earlier this month. His friend Diddy defended him in public at first, telling the Breakfast Club that “a lot of times, what he means is, like, misconstrued.” Privately, the Bad Boy founder contacted Ye to offer some advice — only for Ye to rebuff him, post their texts on Instagram, and warn, “Never call me with no bulls— like that again unless you ready to green light me cause anybody who got on that tee is me.” Ye then commenced social media dustups with Supreme creative director Tremaine Emory, Boosie, and Meek Mill, all of whom criticized the shirt and railed at Ye for a variety of reasons. The whole incident might have seemed at first like another instance of Ye’s personal struggles with mental health, and/or his longtime habit of seeking headlines to promote his latest venture. … Source
