🚨 KYW Emergency Send 🚨 — The Kanye Dump

That's a double entendre. Don't ask me how.

What’s good, family. Thank you for rocking with the Kicks You Wear. I appreciate you dropping by for a quick read.

I know I’m supposed to be gone but I feel obligated to give you all my thoughts on Adidas’ split with Kanye West.

So, without further ado, let’s dive in.

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That’s all, folks

Photo by David Lezcano on Unsplash

The Yeezy era is over. The German sneaker brand formally announced it cut ties with Kanye West early on Tuesday morning.

What they’re saying:

After a thorough review, the company has taken the decision to terminate the partnership with Ye immediately, end production of Yeezy branded products and stop all payments to Ye and his companies. adidas will stop the adidas Yeezy business with immediate effect.

Adidas cited his antisemitic comments, calling them “unacceptable, hateful, and dangerous.” This move is shocking. Nobody saw this coming back in 2016.

But let’s be real. Kanye earned this.

• It wasn’t just the antisemitic comments. It started with the anti-Black “White Lives Matter” shirt West included in Yeezy season 9.

• He kept piling on with his anti-semitic comments and his comments about George Floyd and all the other gross things he had to say.

Adidas didn’t really have a choice but to drop West. Public pressure to do so rose after the company’s history with the Nazi party in the 1900s surfaced publicly. He used that against Adidas to dare it to take action. Eventually, it did.

The aftermath: This move has had ripple effects across the industry already.

• Adidas and West will both take L’s here. The company will lose $250 million and an enormous revenue stream. West loses his billionaire status and the sneaker world’s best royalty.

• As far as public impact goes, the shoes are already being pulled from shelves at major retailers. Footwear News’ Shoshy Ciment reports they’re already down at Foot Locker.

• Plus, don’t forget, lots of people are going to lose jobs from this. That’s the worst part of all of it. All because West needed to be hateful.

So what’s next? For Adidas, the company made it a point to mention that it is the “sole owner of all design rights to existing products.” Basically, almost everything Yeezy is theirs.

• As we discussed before, they own patents for everything aside from the Yeezy Slide.

• If they wanted to, they could easily dump the Yeezy name and rebrand current products under Adidas. The Adidas 350v2, the Adidas 500, the Adidas 700. You get the point.

As for Kanye, man. I have no idea. It’s genuinely hard to see anyone wanting to be near him right now. He’s blown things with two different major sneaker brands and everyone is dropping him. CAA, Balenciaga, Chase, GAP. There are probably more coming and he’s already lost a lot.

My thoughts: But he deserves to. This is his own fault West has repeatedly shown us who he is time and time again.

• He’s now firmly incorporated antisemitic and anti-Black propaganda as part of his global brand. He’s dug his heels in over and over again on all of it.

• As a result, he’s used his platform to willingly give power and light to the worst kinds of people. That will only get worse as time goes by.

When you do that, there are consequences. That’s what today’s result is. You can’t spread hate and trauma unchecked. Money isn’t going to change that. It took longer than it needed to get here, but better late than never.

And before I go: For everyone defending West’s actions with what about-isms, he doesn’t need any of that. Kanye West is a grown man. He made his own bed. Now he has to lie in it. These were his choices alone and, now, these are his consequences to bear alone. He doesn’t need your excuses.

What he actually needs is help. Lots of it. Instead of defending someone who is very clearly wrong, spend some time trying to convince him to go get it.

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Thanks for reading. Peace and love. Be easy. Be safe. Be kind. And we out.

-Sykes 💯