Kanye West Gives GAP Executives An Ultimatum

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Vanguard Award winner Kanye West speaks onstage during the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards at Microsoft Theater on August 30, 2015 in Los Angeles, California.
Kanye finally talked to the executives at GAP after claiming they excluded him from Yeezy x GAP meetings.

Apparently, things aren't moving too smoothly between Kanye West and GAP. The retail giant and the hip-hop mogul have been working closely together but it seems like they don't want to let Ye be Ye. The rapper hit the 'Gram last night where he revealed that GAP was holding a meeting without him. This morning, he accused the GAP of biting Yeezy x Balenciaga designs.


It seems like Kanye West finally got the attention of the GAP executives. The mogul hit the 'Gram with a 6-minute video where he appears to be explaining to the executives why the collaboration "isn't celebrity marketing." "This is a life mission," he added. The long-winded speech finds Kanye explaining his passion for fashion and how he intends to use it to transform the world through it. He explained his own desire to establish retail stores for his GAP line.

"You have to really give me the position to be Ye and do what I'm thinking or I'm going to have to do what I'm thinking somewhere else. Because if there's one thing I learned from Virgil, if something's killing you, it's actually killing you," he said. Kanye West then called out GAP for canceling the pre-orders for the blue jackets before calling them "insane" for only running an advertisement once, even though they saw a huge spike in sales.

Kanye West attends the Fast Company Innovation Festival - Day 3 Arrivals on November 07, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Brad Barket/Getty Images)

"This is the moment. There will never be an opportunity with a guy like me that cares this much about specifically this brand and has done this until this point. We are like Tom Brady waking people up at 2 am during COVID but he went back and got that ring," he said. "We are the football team. This is our football team. And I'm actually the Tom Brady because Demna charge $4000 for a shirt. I'm saying... how do we go Costco, how do we go Old Navy prices?"

Ye continued to explain that he's hands-on at the factories before giving GAP an ultimatum. "This is bigger than us. We shouldn't argue amongst ourselves. But I'm saying I have to go pull that sword out the stone," he added. "You either believe me or I'm going to show you. I can either show you facing this way [back facing the executives] or facing this way [frontward]," he said. 

At the tail end of the video, Kanye shuts down the laughter among the executives and swears on Virgil and his mom. Watch the video below. 


About The Author
Aron A. is a features editor for HotNewHipHop. Beginning his tenure at HotNewHipHop in July 2017, he has comprehensively documented the biggest stories in the culture over the past few years. Throughout his time, Aron’s helped introduce a number of buzzing up-and-coming artists to our audience, identifying regional trends and highlighting hip-hop from across the globe. As a Canadian-based music journalist, he has also made a concerted effort to put spotlights on artists hailing from North of the border as part of Rise & Grind, the weekly interview series that he created and launched in 2021. Aron also broke a number of stories through his extensive interviews with beloved figures in the culture. These include industry vets (Quality Control co-founder Kevin "Coach K" Lee, Wayno Clark), definitive producers (DJ Paul, Hit-Boy, Zaytoven), cultural disruptors (Soulja Boy), lyrical heavyweights (Pusha T, Styles P, Danny Brown), cultural pioneers (Dapper Dan, Big Daddy Kane), and the next generation of stars (Lil Durk, Latto, Fivio Foreign, Denzel Curry). Aron also penned cover stories with the likes of Rick Ross, Central Cee, Moneybagg Yo, Vince Staples, and Bobby Shmurda.
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