Is Kanye West’s Yeezy sneaker empire now the the Lamborghini of shoes?
According to a new Forbes cover story about the rapper’s business endeavors, West’s Yeezy sneaker line, now with Adidas, is a billion-dollar enterprise. In fact, the publication says sales are set to top $1.5 billion in 2019, and West’s pretax income over the past 12 months came in at a whopping $150 million.
When basketball and sneaker brand legend, Michael Jordan gets royalties on the Air Jordan line, he’s estimated to received around 5 percent of annual sales that come out to about $3billion.
But in stark contrast, ever since 2013, when the rapper moved his brand from Nike to Adidas, he struck what Forbes characterizes as an “unprecedented deal” for 15 percent royalty on wholesale, plus a marketing fee.
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The music producer who owns a matte-black Lamborghini SUV, describes his foot line as “the Lamborghini of shoes.” Which is a stunning turnaround from three years ago, when in late 2016, West found himself begging Mark Zuckerberg to invest a billion dollars in his ideas after claiming to be $53 million in debt.
“I’m just blessed through the grace of God to go from tweeting at Mark Zuckerberg (to now),” he admitted during his interview, adding, “People wondered, ‘Why did you tweet at Mark Zuckerberg?’ And I was like, ‘Hey, I heard he was looking for aliens.'”
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Despite the public concern for his mental health, the father of four maintains that being bipolar has given him a “superpower” frees up his creativity rather than being a hindrance.
“Crazy is a word that’s not gonna be used loosely in the future,” West predicts. “Understand that this is actually a condition that people can end up in, be born into, driven into and go in and out. And there’s a lot of people that have been called that ‘C’ word that have ended up on this cover.”