Kanye West is generating support from his friends in the hip-hop industry as he wages war against Adidas, including big support from Swizz Beatz and Diddy, who vows to stop wearing gears from the sportswear giant.
The billionaire rapper turn fashion icon has been posting about the company with whom he has a 1-billion-dollar deal, but according to Kanye West, Adidas had left him out of the decision-making aspect of the business despite him bringing in a large amount of revenue for the company.
Adidas has yet to respond to Kanye West, who has been attacking various members of upper management of the company. Some insiders say that Kanye is attempting to bully the board and shareholders into bringing him into upper management despite his agreement only being one as a designer.
Kanye West has also alleged that Adidas and Gap, with whom he has separate agreements, have stolen his designs and tried to make copies in China. He says he is taking the companies to court over the allegations.
On Tuesday, he continued his harassment of the company and shared that he is getting support from several other big-name celebrities who are ready to boycott the company.
In the last two days, both Swizz Beatz and Diddy joined the war, with the latter threatening Adidas that if it doesn’t do right by Kanye, he’ll call for a boycott.
On Tuesday, Diddy shared a screenshot of a conversation he had with Kanye where he offered to help the artist.
“Please can send me something I could post in support of you! I never wear Adidas again for the rest of my life if they don’t make you right!!!!” Diddy wrote to Kanye, who responded with two sentences, “Praise God and Love you.”
Diddy also shared a caption where he called out Adidas for profiting from black culture and its treatment of Kanye.
“Since the era of Run-DMC, @Adidas has always used Hip Hop to build its brand and make billions off of our culture,” he 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!!,” Diddy said.
A day before, Swizz Beatz also said that Adidas was wrong in its treatment of Ye.
“I usually mind mv 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 !!” he said.
“We not buying these @adidas you’re supposed to be original do the correct thing please,” he added.
Last month, Kanye called out Adidas for its Adilette 22 slide sandals which closely resembled his Yeezy slides.
Since then, he has made several post-then-delete on Instagram where he accused both Adidas and Gap of not honoring their agreement with his Yeezy brand. Kanye West went on to say that he planned to open his first Yeezy brick-and-mortar store in Atlanta and plans to move nationwide as he insinuated that he planned to pull his Yeezy brand from Adidas and Gap.
In September, he also began to post memes and mock various Adidas executives but specifically SVP Daniel Cherry III.
Adidas has not responded to any of the claims by Kanye.
Kanye first started working with Adidas in 2013 with his Yeezy footwear. The shoes became widely popular and brought in a large percent of the company’s total revenue, with $1.7 billion earned in 2021. Kanye’s deal with Adidas sees him having 100% ownership of the copyrights of the shoes and 15% in royalties on sales. The deal runs until 2026.
