Kanye Breaks Up With Gap

The rapper announced that he was ending his partnership with Gap after the company failed to meet the terms of their contract. According to Kanye West's lawyers, Gap was required to have 40% of Yeezy Gap items in their retail locations by the end of 2021 and open up to five specifically dedicated brick-and-mortar stores by mid-2023. West's legal team says Gap will still be able to sell existing Yeezy Gap items before discontinuing the line.

Appearing on CNBC's Closing Bell, Ye opened up about his strained relationship with Gap. "It was always a dream of mine to be at the Gap and to bring the best product possible to the masses,” he explained, saying that he was initially excited about the 10-year deal, but was ultimately ignored by executives. "Obviously there’s always struggles and back-and-forth when you’re trying to build something new and integrate teams."

Looking to provide high quality garments at an affordable price to the mass market, Ye went on to say Gap frequently left him out of the loop when it came to decisions about the collection's price, colorways and stockists. "It was very frustrating. It was very disheartening, because I just put everything I had..." Ye said. "Sometimes I would talk to the guys, the leaders, and it would be like I was on mute or something. Our agenda, it wasn’t aligned."

Launched in June 2021 with an oversized puffer coat, Yeezy Gap had really started to pick up steam in recent months with the introduction of Balenciaga into the fray. The collection made the leap from an online exclusive to the opening of a Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga pop-up at Gap's Times Square flagship just this summer with series of satellite dumpster drops shortly afterwards. Ye would later go on to defend the decision to sell Yeezy Gap out of trash bags on Fox News after the stunt drew criticism for fetishizing the homeless.

Earlier this week, Ye also voiced his intentions to end his deal with Adidas leaving the fate of Yeezy overall as a brand in the balance.

Photo via Getty/Gilbert Carrasquillo