Entertainment

Kanye's Zappos Blast Is Hypocritical

by Christine DiStasio

Here he goes again. Yeezus proved that he's still one of the angriest men in the rap game yesterday. Kanye West bashed Bruno Mars during his Yeezus performance at Brooklyn's Barclay's Center and released a podcast with Bret Easton Ellis where he slammed online shoe retailer, Zappos. That's right, West has some quality-control concerns with the retailer and he expressed them in the least constructive way possible — by telling the company's CEO Tony Hsieh that he sells a "s--t product". You tell 'em, Kanye.

On the podcast, Kanye, who's working on a top-secret movie with Ellis, talked about his favorite childhood flicks and popular movies but you know he couldn't miss an opportunity to talk fashion sense. The Yeezus rapper, who's never shy about discussing his fashion ventures and what he thinks everyone is doing wrong, opened up about a recent trip to Las Vegas where he met with Hsieh:

I got into this giant argument with the head of Zappos that he's trying to tell me what I need to focus on. Meanwhile, he sells all this s--t product to everybody, his whole thing is based off of selling s--t product.

Has Kanye ever used Zappos before? Because the site basically sells the same products that department stores do. Is he looking down on its products because sometimes they sell them at a discount? Which is something they do very rarely, to be honest. Maybe during their meeting, Hsieh tried to nicely tell Kanye that leather athletic pants are a huge mistake... in which case, he'd be right.

His hostility is actually incomprehensible considering the fact that his bride-to-be and baby-momma Kim Kardashian is a founding partner of Shoedazzle. (A similar online shoe and accessories site that recommends styles to its subscribers that include products from in-house and high-end designers.) You're forgetting where you and Kimmy came from, Kanye.

Back in the day, before your friendships with Parisian couture designers, neither of you would have felt that Zappos was beneath you or criticized their product. (ps — I couldn't find any information confirming that brand name products purchased on Zappos are of lesser quality than when purchased elsewhere.) Those of us who shop on Zappos may not be able to stock up the high-end designer duds that grace Yeezus's closet on the site, but we're definitely not purchasing "shit".

Props to Zappos for coming up with an epic comeback to Yeezus's unnecessary attack, though. Having the last laugh is a certified win.