Charlamagne Tha God recently stated that music listeners are no longer concerned with Ye’s raps.
HotNewHipHop reports that ‘The Breakfast Club’ host made the statements during an appearance on the ‘Flagrant Podcast.’ His viral comment came amid their discussion about the public’s reaction to Ye’s Drake diss track.
As previously reported by The Shade Room, rappers Kendrick Lamar and Drake were going head to head in a rap beef. Several other rappers, including Rick Ross, created diss tracks that got the public’s attention. Metro Boomin’s diss-beat even got a warm reception. However, there was little acknowledgment of Kanye’s diss over the ‘Like That’ beat.
Charlamagne stated, “Nobody cares about Kanye rapping in 2024.” The 45-year-old’s comments followed host Andrew Schulz’s question, “Is it over for Kanye?” The 45-year-old continued, “If Kanye would’ve” hopped in a similar beef “10 years ago,” the response would have been significantly different. Charlamagne argued that the interest in the Chicago rapper’s music has faded.
However, Kanye’s banger, ‘Carnival,’ reached number one on the Billboard charts in March. His last chart-topping hit was 13 years ago in 2011. The rapper was featured on Katy Perry’s track, E.T. Moreover, Kanye sat on top of the charts for his song ‘Stronger’ in 2007.
Commenters under The Shade Room’s Instagram report gave their opinion about the author’s hot take.
“Saying that “no ones cares about Kanye rapping’ is a stretch especially since her last album did well on Billboard. We just don’t care about him beefing on wax. Kanye is still a very relevant artist tho,” the comedian Tony Baker stated.
“@Kanye literally was #1 on the Billboard 200 and the Billboard 100 WEEKS ago.. charlamgane says whatever when he gets around white people,” @skylarossfelton added.
“@dajahs shared, “Ye got his own fan base just like everyone else. Lol they care.”
@robsmithonline believes that there is a conspiracy to crash Kanye’s career. “They’re trying to cancel Kanye because he doesn’t hold the Correct Opinions but Kanye is pure culture and you can’t easily get rid of that,” he surmised.
Other Roomies warned the radio host to expect Ye’s wrath.
@lirisc said, “Kanye finna ta respond in 5,4,3,2”
“He finna dawg you to the ground,” @drhnii agreed.
@thelorinking defended Charlamagne’s spicy opinion, stating,“I don’t wanna hear nobody talking bout ‘he tearing a black man down’ cause Kanye himself was tearing black people down.”
The ending of the partnership between the artist Kanye West, who now goes by Ye, in October 2022 appeared to come after weeks of his comments about Jewish people and Black Lives Matter, but the New York Times is reporting that the relationship was troubled from the very start.
At a meeting on the collaborative creation of the very first shoe in 2013, Adidas ADS, -0.10%
ADDYY, -0.03%
designers were stunned when West rejected all of the ideas that were presented using fabric swatches on a table and a mood board, the seven-month investigation found. Instead, West, the Times reports, grabbed a sketch and drew a swastika in marker.
The move shocked the Germans in the room. Germany has a strict ban on displaying the symbol of the Nazi era apart from for artistic purposes. Adding to the sense of horror, the company’s founder — Adolf, or “Adi,” Dassler, who died in 1978 — was a Nazi Party member, and the meeting took place close to Nuremberg, where leaders of the Third Reich were famously tried for crimes against humanity.
“A year ago this week, Adidas threw in the towel.”
West’s fixation on the Nazi era continued, the Times reports, when he later told a Jewish manager at Adidas to kiss a portrait of Adolf Hitler every day. He also told Adidas workers that he admired Hitler’s use and command of propaganda.
West also brought porn to the workplace and made crude, sexual comments at meetings, according to the Times report. Before the swastika episode, West, according to the Times, had made Adidas executives watch porn at a meeting in his Manhattan apartment.
In 2022 he reportedly ambushed executives with a porn film. Other workers complained to top managers that he had made angry sexual comments to them.
The artist, said to have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, also frequently cried or became angry during meetings, according to the Times investigation. In one instance in 2019, he reportedly moved the operation designing his shoes to Cody, Wyo., and ordered the Adidas team to relocate. In a meeting to discuss his demands with executives, he threw shoes around the room, the Times reports.
Adidas sought to adapt to this behavior, given how valuable the West-established Yeezy brand was to the company, locked in a perennial battle for both revenue and buzz with its U.S.-based rival Nike Inc. NKE, -2.04%.
Yeezy sales would rapidly surpass $1 billion a year and help Adidas resonate with young American customers.
Managers launched a group text chain they called the “Yzy hotline” to discuss his behavior. To reduce stress on individuals, the company is said to have rotated managers in and out of dealing directly with West.
Over time, meanwhile, Adidas sweetened the terms of West’s deal. Under a 2016 contract, he was entitled to a 15% royalty on sales with a $15 million upfront payment as well as millions of dollars in Adidas stock. In 2019, a further $100 million a year was earmarked for marketing, but, in reality, West could spend those funds at will.
When a decision was reached to sell the product — in release batches — with some of the proceeds directed to charity and most of the rest flowing to Adidas, West, even then, was entitled to royalties.
After bottoming in October 2022, Adidas shares have mounted a 67% comeback, with relief over the company’s not having had to book a damaging loss on the Yeezy line one factor in the restoration of investor confidence.
Adidas is quoted as having told the Times that it “has no tolerance for hate speech and offensive behavior, which is why the company terminated the Adidas Yeezy partnership,” while West reportedly declined requests for interviews and comment.
The Times investigation is said to have been based on access to hundreds of previously undisclosed internal records.
Brent Delta Topside oil platform at Seaton Port in the United Kingdom on May 5, 2017.
Ian Forsyth | Getty Images News | Getty Images
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Adidas shares tanked 11.64% after the company warned it could lose around 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) in revenue if it can’t clear its Yeezy stock. The German sportswear company ended a partnership with Ye (formerly known as Kanye West), the face of Yeezy, after he made antisemitic comments.
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A selloff in the U.S. markets, rising oil prices and escalating U.S.-China tensions — it feels like we’re back in the worst part of 2022.
U.S. stocks had a terrible week. The Nasdaq dropped 0.61% on Friday, giving it a 2.41% loss for the week. The Dow gained 0.5% and the S&P rose 0.2%, but they still ended the week lower, with the S&P turning in its worst weekly performance in nearly two months.
Higher energy prices are back, too. The Brent contract for April, which covers oil from Europe’s North Sea, hit $86.39 a barrel, having risen more than 8% for the week. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose to $79.72 a barrel, an 8.63% increase for the week — its best since October. Those prices spiked about 2% each on Friday after Russia said it would cut oil production next month to retaliate against Western sanctions.
Relations between the United States and China are fraying. After the U.S. shot down a suspected spy balloon last week, the Commerce Department imposed sanctions on six Chinese aerospace companies that it said support China’s espionage program. On Sunday, the U.S. military shot down a fourth unidentified object — following a second object downed on Friday and a third over the Yukon on Saturday. Though the objects’ origins are still unclear, it’s increasingly likely more sanctions will come.
Amid all that, investors are focusing on the upcoming U.S. consumer price index reading for January with renewed intensity. The numbers will indicate whether we’ll be forced to relive the dark days of 2022, or if there’s hope in at least one part of the economy — America’s consumers.
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In fashion, the top headlines of 2022 were brimming with excitement and chaos.
Scandals swept Balenciaga and any brand associated with the artist formerly known as Kanye West. Legislation offered a new pathway for sustainability in fashion. A new guard of creatives took the helm at some of the world’s most stories houses, while a recession loomed over the whole industry.
Ever since the pandemic struck in 2020, the years have felt as though they’ve all bled together. That’s certainly true for fashion news — so, we’re recapping the biggest headlines in the industry from 2022, from the biggest controversies to the most notable moments of progress.
Designers Act Amid Russia’s war on Ukraine
Photo: Dimitar Dilkoff/Getty Images
In a major escalation of a longstanding conflict, Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, kicking off an intensified war that hasn’t stopped. The fashion industry responded with letters, donations and posts on social media. Vogue Ukraine called designers to action, while Granary — the fashion education platform founded by Ukrainian Central Saint Martins graduate Olya Kuryshchuk — shared an open letter urging the community to condemn Russia.
Groups like LVMH and Kering donated to aid groups like the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), while some brands suspended business in Russia altogether. Meanwhile, designers like Demna took to the runway for messaging against the war (before the brand was embroiled in scandal).
Balenciaga ended the year not with a celebration, but with a series of apologetic statements.
The Kering-owned luxury brand released its Balenciaga Gift Shop campaign on Nov. 16, showing a range of new giftable items from the brand, “staged around children dressed in the Balenciaga Kids line” — however, it soon started trending, with many criticizing the photos showing children next to wine glasses, holding teddy bears in BDSM-reminiscent harnesses.
#BalenciagaGate only got more heat when people turned attention to its Spring 2023 campaign, released just a few days after on Nov. 21. The Joshua Bright-photographed imagery was set in an office, and among a variety of props strewn across a desk, there was a printed copy of the 2008 United States v. Williams decision on child pornography laws. More controversy ensued.
Every era in fashion has had its big names. Now, the industry is moving forward with a new guard of creatives taking seats at the helms of the world’s biggest, most influential houses.
Meanwhile, we’re seeing some of the most powerful names in fashion step back. Riccardo Tisci showed his final Burberry collection in September, and has been replaced by Daniel Lee. Alessandro Michele, who ushered in a new era of extravagance at Gucci, stepped down in November, after seven years at the helm and two decades at the brand. That month, Raf Simons also announced the closure of his eponymous label after 27 years in business.
Known for his encyclopedic knowledge of the industry and larger-than-life presence, Talley was creative director and then editor-at-large at Vogue, responsible for some must-read columns that inspired the next generation and becoming one of the first Black editors to reach the top of the masthead.
Raised in the Jim Crow South, Talley detailed his ascension in fashion and the racism he had to work against in his memoir, “The Chiffon Trenches.” He peeled back the curtain with language as entertaining as it is profound, welcoming wonder in a world often guarded by walls. He ushered in a new guard of dreamers, building his audience and developing close ties with educational institutions like SCAD.
As Fashionista reported, size diversity on the runway regressed in 2022, with the number of New York Fashion Week shows featuring non-sample-sized models dwindling from past seasons, after this issue had become such a talking point pre-pandemic. With runways often being in the market of what’s in and what’s cool, the exclusion of different bodies served as a disappointment.
Sustainability’s next frontier
Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
The fashion industry is notoriously under-regulated, but a new chapter is on the horizon in the U.S., with legislation presenting a path forward for the conversation around sustainability.
… All the while, Kardashian was laughing her way to the bank, by way of Skims, which reached a $3.2 billion valuation in 2022, thanks to new funding and ever-loving fans.
“This latest round will allow us to focus on bringing more innovations and solutions to our customers and become even more of a trusted resource for them,” Kardashian told Fortune.
Since launching in 2019, Skims has found rapid success in shapewear and loungewear, with the pandemic catapulting its cozier categories. This year, the brand also took home the inaugural CFDA Innovation Award presented by Amazon at the trade organization’s annual ceremony.
Patagonia literally gave itself away as a company in the name of environmental preservation and sustainability: This year, American rock climber-turned-businessman Yvon Chouinard transferred ownership of the brand he founded to a trust and nonprofit. The company said it was “going purpose” instead of “going public,” making Earth its main shareholder — a first-of-its-kind move.
The year of the ‘nepo baby’
Photo: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images
For the (somehow) uninitiated, “nepo babies” are relatives of successful, famous or otherwise well-connected people who then end up successful, famous or otherwise well-connected. In 2022, they got called out on online and on the front pages of magazines, with the connections that may have helped them reach their heights of career success being called into question.
Of course, fashion has always lovednepo babies, from Hadids to Jenners to Gerbers. And every year, there’s a new class to look out for in campaigns or sitting in the front row at a Miu Miu show.
Rihanna’s maternity style
Photo: Edward Berthelot/Getty Images
Rihanna has changed any and every new space she’s entered, so it’s no surprise she had the same effect on maternity style as she flaunted her pregnancy in the first half of 2022.
Rather than opting for clothes that covered up her growing bump, the Fenty founder refused to tone down sexiness or her own style. That meant: beaded halter tops, vintage Chanel, diamond belly chains and more. She even got “maternity crop tops” to trend.
Even after their split, Fox continued serving looks, becoming a TikTok star and highlighting emerging designers. She opened LaQuan Smith’s Fall 2022 show and was crowned one of Fashionista’s best dressed celebrities in 2022. She took the cake in ambitious dressing, daring any fan to take it up a notch and dream bigger through their clothes.
After the Brooklyn Nets suspended their star point guard Kyrie Irving for a minimum of five games without pay, the seven-time All-Star player received some other troubling news on Friday. Nike had decided to bench its relationship with the controversial athlete. Moreover, they canceled the launch of his Kyrie 8 signature shoe, a long-in-development product that was to have launched this month.
The sneaker giant released a statement that read, “we believe there is no place for hate speech and we condemn any form of antisemitism. To that end, we’ve made the decision to suspend our relationship with Kyrie Irving effective immediately and will no longer launch the Kyrie 8. We are deeply saddened and disappointed by the situation and its impact on everyone.”
The controversy began last week when Irving posted a link to an antisemitic propaganda film that reiterates talking points from the Black Hebrew Israelites, which is listed as an extremist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Adherents to the group were responsible for the 2019 shooting spree at a kosher supermarket in Jersey City, New Jersey that killed three people. The film and the book it is based upon recycle numerous historical untruths and Jewish conspiracy theories, some dating back to the long-debunked antisemitic fiction The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as well as fake quotes from Adolf Hitler. It also denies the severity of the Holocaust.
Irving deleted the initial tweet, but remained extremely cagey about issuing an apology during multiple interviews, earning rebukes from fellow basketball greats Shaquille O’Neal, Reggie Miller, and Kareem Abdul-Jabaar. Former Nets coach Amar’e Stoudemire (who happens to be Jewish) said he understood that Irving is curious and seeks out new sources of information, but added, “once you starting putting information out there that’s not true, then now it creates a problem.” Charles Barkleyurged NBA commissioner Adam Silver to take action.
Though Irving and the Nets organization pledged to donate $500,000 each to “toward causes and organizations that work to eradicate hate and intolerance in our communities,” the athlete’s prevarication and refusal to flatly renounce antisemitism during follow-up interviews eventually led the Nets to declare him “unfit to be associated” with the team on Thursday.
Afterwards, Irving uploaded a black square image to Instagram and included a lengthy caption that read, in part, that he took “full accountability and responsibly for my actions.” He wrote, “To All Jewish families and Communities that are hurt and affected from my post, I am deeply sorry to have caused you pain, and I apologize.”
He added that he “initially reacted out of emotion to being unjustly labeled Anti-Semitic,” and apologized “for posting the documentary without context.”
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This clearly didn’t cut it with Nike, and no doubt having a newly-restored-to-Twitter provocateur like Kanye Westegging the situation on didn’t help any. (The disgraced rapper went after Shaquille O’Neal after he denounced Irving, and was met with a verbal version of the Shaq Attack.)
Nike may have been looking for an excuse to cut ties with their difficult partner, anyway. In 2021, he called an early look at some new Irving-branded shoes and called them “trash” on social media.
An April 2021 report said Irving’s deal with Nike earned him $11 million the previous year, and called his shoes the second-most popular among fellow NBA players.
This is far from Kyrie Irving’s first tussle with controversy. His refusal to get vaccinated against COVID-19, putting himself and his associates in the NBA at risk, earned him the dubious honor of becoming Sen. Ted Cruz’s new favorite player. Far less harmful, though certainly perplexing, was the time in 2017 when the athlete confirmed that he believed the earth was flat.
It’s been a week since Kanye West, also known as Ye, went on the Drink Champs podcast for a controversial 45-minute conversation. And there have been some repercussions.
West’s claims that George Floyd was not murdered by police officers, but died from fentanyl use, has inspired a $250 million lawsuit from the surviving family. The appearance, which included a litany of antisemitic conspiracy theories, was also the last straw for Balenciaga and its parent company Kering, which severed all ties with West.
The German multinational sportswear company Adidas had already stated that their distribution deal of Kanye’s Yeezy line was “under review” following the star’s appearance in a “White Lives Matter” shirt, but many are asking just what the heck is taking so long.
The Drink Champs appearance was so chock-a-block with startling statements that it took a few days for one short aside to bubble its way up through the sludge and get attention on social media. On Friday, the former NBA player and current Twitter influencer Rex Chapman signal boosted a 13-second clip isolated by an account called @StopAntisemitism that has since received a great deal of commentary. In it, West boasted that his relationship with Adidas is such that “I can literally say antisemitic shit, and they can’t drop me.” After a dramatic pause, West lowered his voice and repeated ominously, “I can say antisemitic things, and Adidas can’t drop me. Now what?”
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On Thursday, the Anti-Defamation League urged the company to break ties with West. “In light of Kanye West’s increasingly strident antisemitic remarks over the past few weeks, we were disturbed to learn that Adidas plans to continue to release new products from his Yeezy brand without any seeming acknowledgment of the controversy surrounding his most recent remarks,” they wrote in a statement. They continued, “We urge Adidas to reconsider supporting the Ye product line and to issue a statement making clear that the Adidas company and community has no tolerance whatsoever for antisemitism.”
The #BoycottAdidas hashtag was trending on Saturday morning, with many scratching their head over how Adidas seems to be standing by their man. Josh Gad, Alexander Vindman, Rosanna Arquette, and screenwriter Randy Mayem Singer were among the many who directed queries to Adidas. David Schwimmer did the same on his Instagram Stories.
Hand is turning a dice and changes the direction of an arrow symbolizing that the value of the … [+] crypto currency Ethereum (ETH) is going up (or vice versa)
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The week after the Securities and Exchange Commission settled charges against Kim Kardashian for (allegedly) illegally promoting a cryptocurrency, JPMorgan Chase JPM and Ye (formerly Kanye West), much like Kim and Ye, wenttheir separate ways. For very different reasons, both moguls’ mishaps provide an opportunity to discuss what’s wrong with financial market regulation in the United States.
The problems go much deeper than just legacy securities and banking regulation. They even bleed over to the newly forming fintech industry.
While it very well may have been JP Morgan’s intent to steer clear of political controversy by dropping Kanye West as a client, it remains unclear exactly what West did to anger JP Morgan. (For what it’s worth, it does appear that JP Morgan sent their letter to Ye before his recent controversial comments.) Perhaps all the clickbait headlines caused him to launch an alarming anti-inflation tirade in JP Morgan’s headquarters.
But it’s not surprising that some people suspect political motives could be behind the breakup. (Between JP Morgan and Ye, not Kim and Ye.) Again, I have no idea what truly happened and I’m not defending anything he may have said or done.
Regardless, as I’ve pointedout before, the much bigger threat to Americans is how much power federal regulators have over banks, not whether banks can ditch their customers.
Federal regulators can ultimately revoke banks’ federal deposit insurance and shut them down. If regulators deem, for example, that lending to fossil fuel companies puts a bank’s reputation at risk, or that doing so constitutes an unsafe or unsound practice, they can force the bank to change who it does business with. They have enormous leverage to do so.
That sort of leverage has many climate change activists excited, but they should reconsider. As soon as people with different views run the agencies, the very same authority could be used to target today’s popular activities and activists. The United States has spent decades leading most developed nations down the same path, discounting fundamental principles in the name of preventing mistakes, financial crises, money laundering, tax evasion, and terrorist financing.
Federal regulators could easily use their authority to target groups engaged in constitutionally protected political protests. (Fourth Amendment protections, for example, have been severely watered down.)
The details of Kim Kardashian’s mishap are a bit different, especially in that they involve a capital markets regulator.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the SEC believes that Kim Kardashian violated securities laws when she used her Instagram page to promote a crypto token (EMAX) without disclosing that she was paid $250,000 for the post. Sometime after her post, EMAX lost most of its value.
To be extra clear: The problem isn’t that EMAX took a deep nosedive, or that Kim promoted a crypto token which (according to the SEC) is a security. The problem is that she didn’t disclose she was being paid to promote EMAX.
Section 17(b) of the Securities Act of 1933 requires any person who gives publicity to the sale of a security to disclose any compensation for doing so. The SEC has enforced this anti-touting rule aggressively, bringing cases against people who have published entirely accurate internet posts about companies in return for undisclosed benefits.
The jurisdictional limits of the SEC allow it to go after her [Kim Kardashian] and Floyd Mayweather, while Matt Damon’s Super Bowl ad for Crypto.com, part of a $65 million campaign, escapes enforcement because it was promoting a platform and not a security.
Setting all these technical and legal arguments aside and ignoring whether securities laws might provide a false sense of security, the bigger problem here is that federal officials have overly broad discretion to act in the name of “protecting” people from making “bad” investment choices. In other words, a guiding principle behind federal securities laws is that federal officials need to prevent Americans from making mistakes and losing money. The SEC has gone way past prosecuting fraud.
Congress should not have given securities regulators so much discretion and it should not have based securities laws on these principles. The same critique applies to U.S. banking law. What Americans have, though, is a complex web of rules and regulations that blunts innovation and competition, as well as the ability to raise private capital.
In the extreme (not theabsurd), the result of this kind of regulatory system is that government officials can allocate credit to politically favored interests.
So, Congress should rethink these principles, but that’s not what they’re doing. Instead, these same ideas, and these same harmful outcomes, are playing out right now as the House tries to craft new stablecoin legislation.
For months, Financial Services chair Maxine Waters (D-CA) and ranking member Patrick McHenry (R-NC) have been negotiating a bill to regulate stablecoins. Negotiations seem to have broken down, and based on the discussion draft, that’s probably a good thing.
During DC Fintech Week, Yahoo!reported that McHenrytold his audience “It [the bill] doesn’t look like a modern regulatory regime. It actually looks pretty retrograde.” He then characterized the “current status of the legislation as an ‘ugly baby,’” and added that “It is a baby nonetheless, and we’re grateful and hopeful it can grow and prosper into something that is a lot more attractive.”
As I and my fellow Cato scholars wrote in early October, the “best part of the draft is that the House…is not trying to enact the President’s Working Group recommendation to ‘require stablecoin issuers to be insured depository institutions.’” The problem, though, is that Congress is arguing over which assets stablecoins should be backed with, who can hold stablecoins, what people can do with stablecoins in their own digital wallets, and which regulator should be in charge.
Congress should write laws to protect Americans from fraud and theft. But that goal does not require Congress to dictate which assets can legally back stablecoins. Let fintech companies and other financial firms experiment, and let people take risks with their own money. Most people aren’t going to use something called a stablecoin if it isn’t stable, so anyone issuing stablecoins better figure out how to make them stable.
Moreover, Congress should not protect legacy firms or the best-connected upstart firms from competition. That’s how free enterprise breaks down, not how it works best for the largest number of people.
Hopefully, McHenry’s wish comes true, and Congress comes up with a bill that’s much more attractive.
Unfortunately, that outcome is wishful thinking unless Congress changes its underlying approach. This time, though, a misstep is likely to keep the U.S. payments system stuck somewhere in the 20th century while the rest of the world races ahead. With or without Kim and Ye.
