MUSIC: Adidas ends partnership with rapper Kanye West over anti-Semitism

Cloth­ing giant Adi­das has cut ties with rap­per Kanye West, say­ing it “does not tol­er­ate anti-Semi­tism or hate speech of any kind.”

West­’s col­lab­o­ra­tion with Adi­das’ Yeezy brand was revis­it­ed after he unveiled his “White Lives Mat­ter” t‑shirt design at Paris Fash­ion Week.

A few days lat­er, the rap­per post­ed an anti-Semit­ic com­ment on his Twit­ter account.

Adi­das has announced that his prod­ucts will be dis­con­tin­ued with imme­di­ate effect.

The sports­wear brand has pre­vi­ous­ly said that the col­lab­o­ra­tion between the Yeezy brand and Ye is one of the most suc­cess­ful in the com­pa­ny’s history.

The sev­er­ing of the part­ner­ship means Adi­das will post a net prof­it of £217m in 2022 as a result.

Ye pre­vi­ous­ly accused Adi­das of steal­ing his designs in a now-delet­ed Insta­gram post.

“Adi­das does not tol­er­ate anti-Semi­tism or oth­er hate speech,” Adi­das said in a state­ment Tues­day. Ye’s recent state­ments and actions are unac­cept­able, hate­ful, dan­ger­ous, and con­trary to our val­ues ​​of diver­si­ty and inclu­sion, mutu­al respect and fairness.”

Insta­gram and Twit­ter sus­pend­ed Ye’s account for sev­er­al days fol­low­ing his anti-Semit­ic remarks. His busi­ness part­ners have also come under pres­sure, with JP Mor­gan in bank­ing and Gap in cloth­ing announc­ing in Octo­ber that they would end ties with Ye.

Ye accused Gap of not fol­low­ing the terms of the deal, includ­ing not open­ing a stand­alone store for its fash­ion brand Yeezy.

Adi­das reviewed their rela­tion­ship after Ye showed them the White Lives Mat­ters T‑shirt, but the com­pa­ny did­n’t say the col­lec­tion was the rea­son for the review.

Accord­ing to the BBC, Ye decid­ed to review the part­ner­ship after being accused of “steal­ing the design” and “repeat­ed­ly try­ing to resolve it personally”.

The term “Black Lives Mat­ter”, a term used to describe oppo­si­tion to racism and police bru­tal­i­ty, became pop­u­lar after the sum­mer of 2020 in Min­neapo­lis, where police offi­cers killed an unarmed black man, George Floyd. .

Lux­u­ry fash­ion brand Balen­ci­a­ga and tal­ent scout­ing firm Cre­ative Artists Agency also cut ties with the rap­per in ear­ly October.

Film and tele­vi­sion pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny MRC announced Mon­day that it will no longer air its recent­ly com­plet­ed doc­u­men­tary about the rapper.

“Kanye” is a music pro­duc­er and sam­pler. Last week, he sam­pled and remixed a clas­sic that has been on the charts for over 3,000 years. The lie that the Jews are evil and con­spir­ing to rule the world for their own ben­e­fit” As the leader of this com­pa­ny (Jew­ish, Mus­lim, Chris­t­ian), I feel oblig­at­ed to inform every­one of this vicious and hor­ri­fy­ing use of false log­ic,” the MRC wrote on Monday.

Adi­das stock fell 8% after the announce­ment, but has since slowed down.

In its lat­est earn­ings fore­cast released in Octo­ber, Adi­das warned that a weak­er busi­ness in Chi­na and weak con­sumer demand in key mar­kets in Europe and the Unit­ed States would weigh on its 2022 earn­ings fore­cast. The com­pa­ny also announced in August that cur­rent pres­i­dent Kasper Rorsted would be leav­ing the com­pa­ny in 2023, and is look­ing for a new CEO.

A spokesper­son for Cam­paign Against Anti-Semi­tism said, “Adi­das has final­ly teamed up with oth­er brands and agen­cies to cut ties with Ye.” None of this would have hap­pened with­out the near­ly 175,000 sig­na­tures and the celebri­ties and influ­encers on both sides of the Atlantic and around the world who helped pro­mote and ampli­fy the message. ”

The rap­per has also fall­en down the list of Forbes bil­lion­aires. The mag­a­zine esti­mates that los­ing the affil­i­a­tion with Adi­das reduced Ye’s net worth from $1.5 bil­lion to $400 million.