US banking giant, JP Morgan Chase, is ending its relationship with the rapper and designer, Kanye West and his Yeezy brand.
The bank in a letter gave Mr West until November 21 to transfer his business. Kanye had previously taken to social media to criticise JP Morgan’s leadership and revealed they would not give him access to the bank’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon.
Mr West told Bloomberg in September that he was severing ties with his corporate partners and that “it’s time for me to go it alone”. The move by JP Morgan comes as Mr West’s business partnerships have come under increased scrutiny.
A week prior, sportswear firm, Adidas, stated that it was reviewing its deal with him days after he showed a ‘White Lives Matter’ T-shirt design at Paris Fashion Week. The company did not mention the controversy but noted that “successful partnerships are rooted in mutual respect and shared values”.
Kanye receives backlash over hate speech
In September, Mr West revealed that he was ending his partnership with the retailer Gap. He accused the firm of failing to honour terms of the deal, including by failing to open standalone stores for his Yeezy fashion label.
Kanye has recently come under heavy public backlash as an upcoming episode of the YouTube talk show ‘The Shop: Uninterrupted’ has been scrapped after Kanye West allegedly used “hate speech and extremely dangerous stereotypes” in an interview.
Fox News removed those segments before broadcast, but the footage was leaked to technology website, ‘Motherboard’.
The rapper told host, Tucker Carlson, the ‘White Lives Matter’ t-shirt he wore was “funny” and “the obvious thing to do”.
In unaired clips from the same interview, Mr West detailed his belief in an unfounded anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that Planned Parenthood was founded “to control the Jew population” in conjunction with the Ku Klux Klan.
“When I say Jew, I mean the 12 lost tribes of Judah… who the people know as the race Black really are.”
Kanye West
Mr West’s statement was in reference to unsupported historical evidence, that Black people are the “real” Jewish race, and that Jews are attempting to “steal” their birth right. He also complained that his children were attending a school where Kwanzaa – an annual celebration of African-American culture – is taught.
By this, he explained that he would rather they learned about the Jewish holiday ‘Hanukkah’ because “at least it will come with some financial engineering”.
In another clip, the rapper confirmed he had received the Covid-19 vaccine, despite previously claiming the shots were “the mark of the beast” and part of a plot to implant chips in people.
He also claimed that “fake children” had been placed in his home to manipulate and “sexualize” his four children with former wife, Kim Kardashian.
Fox News has not explained why it excluded these clips from its broadcast, although most television interviews are edited and condensed for clarity.
Kanye’s Twitter and Instagram accounts were suspended after he posted anti-Semitic messages.
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