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Kanye West went all the way in on Adidas by calling out the shoe brand's leading staff by name during a flood of Instagram posts. Amid all the drama unfolding on Ye's timeline, Swizz Beatz stepped in to defend his friend's mission against the shoe company.
On Monday, September 5, Swizz took to his own timeline to vocalize his support for Ye. In his post, he uploaded an image of some orange-and-black Yeezy knockoffs with a red x in the middle of it. The Verzuz co-founder, who's currently in his own legal battle over proper compensation for his and Timbaland's creation, said if Adidas can do this to Ye then it can happen to anyone.
"I usually mind my business but this is DEAD WRONG!" Swizz wrote in his caption. "If we let them do this to @kanyewest it will happen to us also! This man created this groundbreaking innovation and it should be respected as a creative ! YE is only asking for his work to be respected and not stolen that’s not crazy to me !! We not buying these !!!!!!!!!!!! @adidas you’re supposed to be original do the correct thing please !!!"
"That's love," Ye responded in a repost of Swizz's message. He continued to show his appreciation by reposting another image of the veteran producer with the caption, "This the energy."
Ye's verbal attack on Adidas began earlier this summer after he alleged the company stole the design for his Yeezy slide and promoted their own version of the sandal. Since then, he claimed that Adidas' "Yeezy Day" was launched without his permission and accused the brand of appointing employees, like Daniel Cherry III, to manage Yeezy without his consent.
Cherry currently serves as Adidas' Senior Vice President/General Manager and has been the target of Ye's posting spree for the past few days. Ye previously posted memes including one that features Cherry in a black hat and another which depicts him holding hands with Kid Cudi, who's wearing a white dress. Those memes arrived after Ye claimed Adidas CEO Kasper Rørsted was “dead at 60” in his preferred newspaper-inspired graphic.
“Hi my name is DC I was hired by the recently deceased Kasper without YE’s knowledge to run the most culturally influential brand in the world,” he captioned in his first post about Cherry. “I got ideas Starting with this hat They gave me the job over Mark Minor because they love my hat idea Damn I miss Kasper.”
Ye has apparently settled his war with Adidas, but now he's got his eyes set on his issues with Gap next. See his message about the feud with his collaborators below.