Kanye West stopped by Hot 97 today with Kim Kardashian by his side, and he explained why he left Nike for Adidas, and how he wants to become the first hip hop designer.
In the second part of his interview with Angie, Kanye talked about his love for Kim, and being a father to North.
So then I start turning up in the BBC interview, so [Nike] said, ok cool, we’re gonna give you a bigger sandbox to play in. We’re gonna give you this amount right here to design, and two collections a year, and 30 skews — that’s the amount of items that you have. Would that make you happy, Kanye? And I said, well I need royalties. It’s not even like I have a joint venture. At least give me some royalties. Michael Jordan has 5%, that business is $2 billion. He makes a $100 million dollars a year off of 5% royalties. Nike told me we can’t give you royalties because you’re not a professional athlete. I told them, I go to the Garden and play one-on-NO-ONE. I’m a performance athlete. Did I really ANYTHING? YES! Did I really EVERYTHING. 100,000 percent. I’m 100,000 percent at all times. It’s people that work in offices trying to tell me how to think, when I got a better perspective. I live in Paris.
So the old me, without a daughter, would have taken the Nike deal because I just love Nikes so much. But the new me, with a daughter, takes the adidas deal because I have royalties and I have to provide for my family.
Whatever’s official, non-official, official, what y’all gonna see is… I am going to be the Tupac of product… I’ma be the first hip-hop designer, and because of that… I’ma be bigger than Walmart.