Kanye West’s Yeezy Company Dropped By JPMorgan Chase
Investment bank JPMorgan Chase has severed ties with embattled rapper Kanye West. The news was broken by conservative commentator Candace Owens, who tweeted on Wednesday (Oct. 12), “Earlier today I learned that @kanyewest was officially kicked out of JP Morgan Chase bank. I was told there was no official reason given, but they sent this letter as well to confirm that he has until late November to find another place for the Yeezy empire to bank.”
The text of the undated letter posted by Owens opens with an acknowledgment that per a “recent discussion,” the largest bank in the U.S. “has decided to end its banking relationship with Yeezy, LLC and its affiliated entities,” noting that the rapper was encouraged to transfer his business to another financial institution before Nov. 21.
A spokesperson for Chase declined to comment at press time, though Billboard has confirmed the contents of the letter and that it was dated Sept. 20, weeks before West’s recent string of anti-Semitic comments and a parallel controversy over the “White Lives Matter” shirt he wore at his recent Paris Fashion Week show. The New York Times‘ DealBook reported that it had also confirmed the closure of Ye’s account.
In early Sept. West told Bloomberg that he was done working with corporate partners, saying, “It’s time for me to got it alone. It’s fine. I made the companies money. The companies made me money. We created ideas that will change apparel forever… Now it’s time for ye to make the new industry. No more companies standing between me and the audience.”
The story also noted that Ye had been at odds with Chase already after he’d publicly criticized a number of senior executives and CEO Jamie Dimon, telling Bloomberg about his experience with the bank, “I feel like there’s a lot of controlling and handling to suppress my ability to affect the American economy and industry.”
At the time, West was doing a kind of publicity tour to discuss his break with retail partner The Gap and his troubled relationship with athletic brand, Adidas, with the letter from Chase seemingly arriving within days of the media appearances in which Ye aired his grievances with his fashion and financial partners.
The loss of support from the bank is just one of the crises swirling around West, who has also come under increasing fire over the past week for his repeated use of hateful, anti-Semitic tropes and stereotypes. Those comments — including a number that were edited out of a recent interview with Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson — led to widespread condemnation from fellow artists such as Ariana Grande and Jack Antonoff, as well as an invite from the L.A. Holocaust Museum to come and learn about the potentially deadly results of anti-Semitic hate speech.
West was also locked-out by Twitter after a string of posts, including one in which he threatened to go, “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.” At the same time, the Yeezy boss had an Instagram posts removed by parent company Meta after it said the rapper violated its speech policies by posting text messages between him and fellow rapper/entrepreneur P. Diddy claiming he would, “show the Jews that told you to call that no one can threaten or influence me.”
A spokesperson for West has not returned multiple requests for comment.
See Owens’ post below.
Gil Kaufman
Billboard
