Kanye West expressed himself on Instagram after finding that GAP held a meeting without him. He started by accusing GAP of stealing designs from the YEEZY GAP ENGINEERED BY BALENCIAGA collection and canceling a shoot with his children in Japan.
Ye then followed up in the morning with a post with the following caption: “The Vision will be realized. Let’s start with stores in Atlanta.” The post includes parts of his passionate speech to GAP executives, in which he describes his vision for the company, expresses his frustration with its current course, and assures GAP that his ideas will be achieved with or without them. Kanye begins his statement by saying, “This is Spartan, this is not celebrity marketing, this is not a collaboration, this is a life mission,”.
“This is bigger than us. We shouldn’t argue amongst ourselves. But I’m saying I have to go pull that sword out the stone,”. Ye continues, “You either believe me or I’m going to show you. I can either show you facing this way [away from the GAP executives] or facing this way [towards them]. But you’re going to see it.”
Later, West criticizes GAP’s previous strategic choices, such as its choice to halt pre-orders for the blue jackets and refrain from doing fashion shows. The moment the executives started to applaud or rejoice, Ye abruptly stopped them, reminded them of how close he had come to quitting, and threatened to do so. Ye also makes reference to doing the right thing by Virgil Abloh and his mother Donda throughout the meeting.
“You really have to give me the position to Ye and do what I’m thinking or I’m going to have to do what I’m thinking somewhere else because one thing I’ve learned from Virgil is that if something’s killing me, it’s actually killing me,” Ye says.
After writing about the GAP meeting, West goes on to discuss his ambitions to create YEEZY stores all over the world. He shares an Apple Notes screenshot asking from anyone “who has over 10 years of retail expertise and is ready to change the world.” to get in touch with his team.
“I signed with both adidas and GAP because it contractually stated they would build permanent stores which neither company has done even though I saved both of those companies at the same time. Ima show you how to use social media,” Ye writes.
Ye’s friends, including 2 Chainz, Pusha T, Fivio Foreign, and Justin Laboy, swiftly join the conversation in the comment section as it quickly erupts. Lawrence Berger, the Chairman of FanzzLids, tells LaBoy in particular that they are prepared to have a serious conversation. The final post in the series has a clip of Christopher Walken’s “The Lion Speech” from Poolhall Junkies (2002) with the comment, “The monster(s) about to come life again,” giving readers a clear understanding of Ye’s current mental state.