When you work with Kanye West, you have to take the bad with the good. Sure, the mercurial producer’s co-sign brings with it a legion of loyal (perhaps even lemming-like) fans who would spend a week’s lunch money on one of the man’s toenail clippings, but those guaranteed profits come with the probability that, at some point, you’re going to get on his bad side and wind up on the receiving end of one of his occasional reactionary rants.
Adidas has learned as much the hard way after Kanye accused the company of ripping off his Yeezy slide design for the Adilette 22 slides on Instagram (the post in question has since been deleted). Now, Adidas has apparently incurred his wrath yet again with its Yeezy Day promotion which is celebrated annually on August 2. This time, though, Kanye directed his comments to the Complex Instagram profile‘s DMs, accusing the company of greenlighting the unofficial holiday without his approval, in addition to bypassing him on colorways, employee hires, and re-issuing older Yeezy styles. He also accused Adidas of sabotaging his partnerships with Gap and Balenciaga. You can see his full statement below.
It should be noted that Kanye had similar complaints about Nike, and has an established history of … well, not reading his contracts thoroughly to know what rights and controls he actually has. He’s also been known to change his mind at the drop of a hat and he’s got a lot of plates spinning, so any company working with him probably isn’t exactly waiting on tenterhooks for his every dictate with deadlines to hit — something he’s also kind of notoriously bad at keeping up with.
