Over the weekend Kanye West was in his hometown of Chicago where he performed at the Chicago Bulls game, as well as giving a lecture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he received a honorary doctorate. During his lecture, a humble Kanye delved into a number of topics, but one in particular stood out.
It’s no secret Ye ditched the Swoosh company for Adidas. Nike refused to give Yeezy a royalty on his products, but offered him $4 million a year to stay with the brand. Yeezy decided to part ways due to the fact that Nike told him he wasn’t entitled to a percentage of earnings because he isn’t a athlete.
Kanye went into detail stating, “When it was time to do the Adidas collection, and I left Nike because they refused to give me a percentage because I was not an athlete — I don’t have a NDA that says I can’t say this even though it seems wrong to say out loud — I left Nike because they refused to give me a percentage. They also offered me $4 million a year to stay.
I still left them, because they weren’t giving me the opportunity to grow. They were working off an old business model, and Phil Knight was somewhere on an island. And then, Mark Parker would go and find people who I collaborated with years before, and try to do collaborations with them to seem cool, and as you see, Nike hasn’t done like, one cool thing this year.
He continued revealing, “These are just Adidas that are fresh, they’re not even my shoes. I don’t even get paid to wear ’em.”
And with that said, Ye has made it quite clear that he isn’t all about the money, he likes to be very much involved in whatever venture he’s involved in.
Go Ye!
