Yeezy, Yeezy, Yeezy just jumped over Jumpman . It was not one more phrase of a song. For Kanye West it meant everything. That " Yeezy just jumped on Jumpman " was a declaration of intent, a goal that he had not achieved in numbers but that in the rapper's head resonated as a simple reality. The theme, Facts , ( Acts ), was the most controversial of his Life of Pablo (2016) and gave him discussions with the Jordan and Nike familythat he later tried to soften, but all his truth was there.
" Me, like Kanye West, like the Michael Jordan of music ...", he proclaimed himself in 2013 in the New York Times. Seven years have passed and, after the laughter over the phrase, we can say that Kanye West was right. If when referring to being 'the Michael Jordan' of a sector we are talking about someone who has managed to be number 1 in their main activity, and at the same time has managed to leave the niche of their market to dominate another field and thus become a global icon So yes, Kanye West is the Michael Jordan of music.
Because the rapper who grew up in Chicago , a teacher mother and ex- Black Panther father , "wanted to be like Jordan" and eventually became one of hip-hop's most influential people and the second-most sneaker designer. important in the world . Eminem has sold more records and it could be argued whether other artists rap better, but none have transcended beyond music as much as West, or at least no one has attempted to be 'the Michael Jordan of' with similar success. Just him. “I will be the leader of a company that will end up being worth billions of dollars. I have the answers, I understand the culture, I am the nucleus ”, he summarized in 2013. Said and done.
From his Los Angeles mansion , which he refers to as "a futuristic Belgian monastery," and from a discreet blue and gray building in the California town of Calabasas , West controls the design and production of the Yeezy brand , short for of Kanyeezy , the nickname that put his friend Jay-Z in a song of 2003. a name that now, 17 years later, after leaving to sign with Nike and Adidas, is able to look into the eyes of the iconic, legendary and generational Air Jordan.
Annually, Nike achieves 3,000 million dollars in sale of Air Jordan shoes, for more than 1,000 of Adidas with Yeezy . And those more than a billion dollars of difference have not prevented Kanye from proclaiming himself “the highest paid person in the world of sneakers. I make more money than Jordan . The explanation is simple: according to Forbes, Nike paid the former player $ 100 million for 2017 sales ... But West owns 100% of Yeezy and 15% that Adidas gives him, something that Nike "refused" According to him, to give to 'celebrities', it is more than 5% that they give to Jordan ...
With all these data, both Adidas and Kanye West himself hoped that 2020 would be the year in which Nike and Jordan were definitively close in numbers, but The Last Dance arrived . The broadcast of the ESPN and Netflix documentary about Jordan's career in the Chicago Bulls has been a turning point at the image level for the former player, and also, like everything he has done, does and will do, at the business level. Some Air Jordan 1 with Michael's autograph sold for $ 560,000 online a couple of weeks ago, a new record in the sale of sneakers. Without the signature, that original model sold for $ 3,000 before the documentary. Now the average is over 7,000 . In the last month, the average sales of commercial Air Jordan has risen 38%, a boost for a model that in February had 23% of the market in StockX , the world's most famous online shoe website, by 18 % of Adidas Yeezy Boost 350s . Only 5% difference. Kanye was already there.
It is one more battle in a war that West himself started when he stopped wearing the Air Jordan in all his galas and concerts and began to exhibit his Yeezy , in clothing that mixed couture brands and sneakers designed for the average citizen . A combination that has shaken the world of urban fashion, and that Kanye began to take to another level when he left Nike and moved to Adidas in 2013, the same year he released the album Yeezus, in which he humbly declared: « I am a god ».
Three years later, he closed Madison Square Garden to present his new Yeezy. In the seats, the entire Kardashian family, influencers, models, superstars ... His latest album 'The Life of Pablo ' was playing, and on the altar, his new sneakers. It was a kind of ' Ragnarok multitask '. West had brought all the Hollywood glamor to sneakers that were worth the same as the Jordan.
Kanye took advantage of everything he generated that night for one of his masterpieces: asking Mark Zuckerberg , founder of Facebook, for a billion dollars . The day of his birthday. And on Twitter. He acknowledged having a debt of 50 million, but that is supposed to be the least of it. He dressed in need what was really a challenge to the brains of Silicon Valley: « Those of San Francisco listen to rap but you have never really helped artists . You would rather set up a school in Africa than help, "he said.
Zuckerberg's help did not come, the debt was forgotten and his 2016 ended in storms, ensuring that he could stand for the 2020 elections , showing his support for Trump and canceling his tour to enter a psychiatric hospital. In his last gigs he had cracked the music industry - "Fuck it cool, fuck everything" - and even from his former partner Jay-Z: "I know you have hitmen, don't send them to me," he said at a concert.
Recovered, he acknowledged that all those tweets had been written by drugged and that his doctor had prescribed pills after having undergone liposuction . He admitted suffering from bipolar disorder that he considers "a gift", and linked his crisis with his " Christian rebirth ": Sunday masses, concerts with gospel choirs in prisons and an album, Jesus is King: "I was born again," he said. this year at GQ .
And while the Yeezy on the market sell out after ten minutes, their resale value continues to rise and the total sum of sales reached 1.3 billion last year, which has brought West a personal profit of 140 million, something that allows him, for example, to go three years without touring and to have appeared in 2019 only at the Coachella festival for a few minutes: “What makes celebrity products sell so well is scarcity », Admits to Forbes. A plan that has the approval of Adidas. "We have only seen a small glimpse of what is coming," he says. Well that.
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