Adidas Takes Away from Controversial Remarks Kanye West. Slavery is ‘a choice’, said rapper Kanye West earlier this week in an interview. Then he got so much criticism that even Adidas, with whom he collaborates for his shoe brand, felt called to respond.
West’s remarks in the infamous interview with TMZ are striking. He said about slavery: “If you hear that that lasted 400 years, that sounds like a choice.” That resulted in thousands of angry reactions to social media.
Angry Americans launched a petition asking Adidas to put the rapper aside. Adidas is the producer and seller of Wests shoe brand Yeezy. Topman Kasper Rørsted initially did not want to respond to the interview, but says today that these are ‘obvious comments that we can not support’.
For the time being, the company does not want to break the contract of the rapper. The CEO indicates that Yeezy is essential for the Adidas strategy and that West is a ‘fantastic creative’. The sales figures for the sub-brand are not high, but it is an integral part of the entire Adidas brand.
West reacted after the interview on Twitter himself that he thinks his statements have been taken out of context. He believes that we should ‘be able to discuss openly painful subjects’, and that we should ‘update’ the discussion on racial issues.