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On Tuesday, Gap and Adidas finally decided to completely cut ties with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, after the artist spent weeks going on bigoted rants.
Both companies had continued sales in their lucrative clothing partnerships with Ye, seemingly undeterred by his public displays of anti-Blackness and his repeated antisemitic statements.
But remarks that surfaced over the weekend, and mounting public backlash, seem to have forced their hand.
In a previously unreleased clip from the “Drink Champs” podcast, Ye explicitly said, “I can say antisemitic things, and Adidas can’t drop me. Now what?”
Now … you lose a bunch of endorsements, I guess.
There are a few lessons to be learned from this fiasco.
For Ye and others seeking to follow in his footsteps, it’s simple: If you become a raging and highly public antisemite, you may lose your highly public, multimillion-dollar brand collaborations and sponsorships.
Given the latest actions by Adidas and Gap, along with several other companies’ refusal to part with him over his anti-Black remarks, that’s all we can really take from this incident as far as deterring future behavior is concerned. Corporations demand minimal humanity — which is still some humanity.
But there’s a lesson here for Ye’s followers, too. And frankly, anyone engaged in stan culture: Divorce yourselves from your internalized elitism.
That’s the only thing explaining why so many of us think our favorite artists should be excused from accountability for doing wrong unto others. We play as art aficionados, tastemakers who get to say when purportedly high-minded artists pass a threshold into pope-like infallibility merely because we’ve deemed them brilliant.
And that infatuation can almost sound biblical at times.
Trust in him. He has a plan. He is for us. I find it all quite sad.
That’s how I’ve felt in recent years, seeing artists like Erykah Badu repeatedly run to Ye’s defense after his rantings against others.
Back in 2018, she sent these words of support during a time when Ye was facing heat for showing fealty to then-President Donald Trump.
This video of celebrities reportedly attending an event for Ye after he made his infamous 2018 comments referring to chattel slavery as “a choice” helps illustrate the fanaticism.
And late last month, when Ye was publicly ranting against Gap and Adidas and demanding they acquiesce to his creative wishes, Badu took up for him again, saying on Instagram that “no one is more beautiful and kind and creative” than Ye and thanking him for “fighting for us and for your self most of all.”
“I get it,” she said.
There’s that elitism again. The suggestion that there’s some deeper meaning — some higher calling — behind a public figure’s outbursts and wrongs. The assumption that these wrongs are part of some grand scheme beyond the comprehension of mere mortals who, y’know, haven’t won a Grammy or whatever.
And why? Because they made “Late Registration”? Because they made that one song that we heard that one time that it made us feel a certain way? Because they uttered a single statement we hold dear? Because they devised a style of clothing we like to wear?
It’s very presumptuous.
However moved you may have been by Kanye West, his clothing or his ponderings about butt-bleaching and poop scoops, it’s critical you understand the many others who don’t lionize him the same way, and won’t for increasingly obvious reasons.
Same goes for other disgraced creatives whom you may see fit to defend.
The rest of the world doesn’t deserve to be punished for your narrow-mindedness. If the only brilliant people you know and uphold are those who abuse and exploit, that is — a Ye phrase — “a choice.” You should broaden your horizons and get to know more brilliant people, because there are others deserving of your praise who won’t exhaust and harm you.