S. Samuel
Grammy-winning rapper Kanye West recently dished out on his new relationship with mega sneaker retailer Adidas and why former business affiliate Nike will be forced to change its shady ways.
Despite massive success with his Yeezy Nike sneakers, Ye promised his Adidas debut will still meet high expectations.
“Yeah, 100 percent, it’s going to be dope, everything is going to be dope,” Kanye said when asked if his Adidas debut sneakers will have as much appeal as his limited edition Nike Yeezy collection. “It’s just like having a record deal, simple as that. What if I would have been stopped at The College Dropout and I never got the chance to make ‘Gold Digger’ and I never got the chance to make ‘Can’t Tell Me Nothin’ and I never got the chance to get to ‘N*ggas In Paris’ – with Nike, they were trying to confine the idea. They always send celebrity marketing to me and I’m like, ‘I’m a designer, I’m a creator, why don’t you just let me create? I got some ideas right here and you saw with these two Yeezys right here how much they worked.’ At a certain point, they brought a contact – I looked at the Adidas contact and I looked at the Nike contract and I looked at my daughter’s eyes and I made the decision I needed to make to be able to make product.” (“The Morning Riot”)
Yeezy also unleashed some fury toward Nike for allegedly doing business owners shady.
“I appreciate Nike for allowing me the opportunity to express myself [but] it ain’t like they wanted me to do a Yeezy [sneaker],” Kanye added. “I said, ‘No.’ And I Chicago’ed my way into finally having some Yeezy’s and I made some Yeezy’s. … Nike will tell store owners, ‘Okay, if you want these Red Octobers, you gotta take these ten other Nike’s.’ And then they’ll come to me like, ‘Yeah, we don’t even know when we’re starting it yet, we don’t know when the next ones are even coming out.’ I’m saying that because you need to hear this, in Portland – listen, at the Nike campus, that methodology, that’s not going to work – it’s not going to work now because Kanye West, I’m at Adidas. The game has flipped already. It ain’t nobody you can run to, it ain’t nowhere you can hide. I just got back from Germany, it was one of my greatest creative days in my life. We designed the entire women’s collection, we designed the entire men’s collection and we designed 20 shoes. We coming in September and it’s about to be a pardigm shift. What I’m saying is be nice. Nike, be nice to these stores, be nice to people. Be nice and we not each other’s enemies. All that pimping, extortion and making people feel less of themselves, that’s not gonna happen no more. And it happens at work too, it happens at school, too.” (“The Morning Riot”)
Earlier this month, Kanye compared Adidas’ belief in him to former Roc-A-Fella Records co-owner Damon “Dame” Dash offering him a record contract in the early 2000’s.
“Man, it just feels good to be able to create more, create product that I can control the pricing on, that I can do quality control on and I feel very comfortable to have a great partner backing my ideas and allowing me to think and be creative and giving me that shot the same way how Dame gave me a record deal ten years ago, gave me a shot and I was able to do something creative with it. This is a new opportunity for me, I feel like I got a new family, fiancée, child and a new creative outlet and as a creative person, you need those creative outlets.” (“Tall Boy”)
A few days prior, the company issued a statement on adding Kanye to its team.
“For 2014, we welcome to the adidas family one of the most influential cultural icons of this generation, Kanye West. Well known for breaking boundaries across music, film and design and partnering with our history in street wear culture and leading innovations in sport, we look forward to creating a new chapter. Details to follow.” (Statement)
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