Did Kanye West copy 'Donda’ logo? Black-owned company wants credit for merch design
When it comes to marketing, there are very few geniuses like Kanye West who can cash in on anything they introduce in the market. Now, in order to promote his brand new album ‘Donda’, the rapper had introduced a stem player and also rolled out the official merchandise of the album in collaboration with fashion giant Balenciaga which is now up for sale on his official website.
While a few pieces from the clothing line stand out, a particular design from ‘Donda’s official merch is reportedly getting the limelight as the design of Kanye’s tee apparently looks very similar to the fashion line of a brand called Infinity G8ds. Now, if the Marilyn Manson and DaBaby controversy were not enough, the 44-year-old rapper seems to have embroiled in yet another dispute. Kanye has now been accused of stealing the logo design from the Black-owned business as its creative director Randy Dawkins feels Donda’s merch including T-shirts and hoodies features a direct copy of the design that belongs to their brand.
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Did Kanye rip off Donda’s merch logo from another brand?
The black tees from ‘Donda’s merch features designs like ‘2024’, a picture of the rapper’s childhood home and the photo of his late mother as a kid. However, a set of neutral-colored tees feature a sort of religious sign apparently similar to Dawkins’s clothing line. The t-shirts were stamped with a bold, stretched-out Star of David with a thin cross centered in the middle, positioned a few inches below the collar. The merch reads “Donda” underneath along with the date of the event.
Donda’s merch is priced between $60 and $200 and the neutral-colored tees, in particular, were sold at $100 at West’s August 5 ‘Donda’ album listening party at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Dawkins claimed that Kanye’s personal executive chef Willie Wallace first got in touch with InfinityG8ds in late July, as reported by The Daily Beast. “I was on the phone directly talking to Kanye. He was like, ‘Bro, I really love your design. It’s really dope. When can I meet you to talk about your process?'” Dawkins’ crew met Kanye on July 26 revealing, “The conversation was pretty general. He just wanted to understand our process. We explained it to him and broke it down. He was loving the whole idea, the whole design.”
What did InfinityG8ds say about the controversy?
According to The Daily Beast, Dawkins gave his two cents on the matter saying, “You met with us, you had opportunities to say, ‘Let’s collab in this way, let’s do it that way,’ but he didn’t see any reason to involve us in what he wanted to do, and being that we know for a fact that we inspired him to create his Donda merch, I’m disappointed.”
He further stated, “Our side of the story is, we’re not mad at you, but from one Black artist to another Black artist, he could have said, ‘I see what you got going on, let’s help you gain some exposure, some visibility. That’s all we ask. We’re not the only victims in this rampage” adding, “We hope that people come out and really speak upon their side of this story as well, because I feel like there needs to be protection for our small businesses.” On August 6, the official Instagram account of the founder with the user name ‘ssosneezy’ posted multiple clips as evidence that they did go for the meeting. He also posted a detailed thread, where at one place he mentioned all they wanted was their credit. “We are not the type of people to chase clout but business could have been handled differently so we could at least have gotten our creative credit.”