Kanye West Accused of Stealing Design for Donda Album Event Merch

Kanye West has been accused by another designer of ripping off the logo he used on his merch for the Donda album listening event held in Atlanta in July.

On Wednesday (Spet. 1), XXL confimed with up-and-coming brand Infinity G8ds that they claim the shirts Kanye sold at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in the ATL last month, which dons the Star of David with a cross in the middle, look relatively similar to the logo for Infinity G8ds.

Infinity G8ds claim they sent over clothing to Kanye per the request of someone on ’Ye’s team. The individuals behind the rising brand later met with Kanye, who reportedly told them that their logo was “dope,” according to The Daily Beast.

“We at Infinity G8ds do not have any intentions to tear down another Black person or any brand for that matter we understand the hard work it takes to build a brand,” a rep for Infinity G8ds tells XXL. “Our only intention was to speak up and defend our brand at all cost. We wish that Mr. West and his team would have handled business more fairly and mentioned Infinity G8ds as an inspiration behind his Donda merchandise design and that creative mention could have taken our brand a very long way. ’Ye had us put aside what we had going on to drive from Miami to Atlanta to meet with him. That’s time and money just to play us. We definitely misjudged his character. With the exposure that we have been receiving from this situation, we hope that he decides to change his ways and learn to treat other creatives with respect.”

Infinity G8ds, who also released an album called Till Infinity in July to coincide with their brand, are putting Yeezy on blast for copying their design and putting it on his own merchandise. They feel the situation could have been “handled differently” or they could have been given some sort of creative credit.

Randy Dawkins, creative director of Infinity G8ds, claims this all began back in July, months after the brand began sharing their logo online in March. The logo is a cross wrapped in an infinity sign inside of the Star of David.

Dawkins said Kanye‘s executive chief, Willie Wallace, even requested samples, which the designer obliged and sent over four items from their collection.

Then, on July 24, Dawkins had a FaceTime meeting with Wallace and Kanye, who praised Infinity G8ds’ designs and inquired about the creative process to make their clothing. Dawkins and JayShawn Bull, a rap artist who goes by SSO Sneezy that founded the brand, drove from Miami to Atlanta to meet with Kanye on July 26.

Dawkins and Bull brought five additional items and met with ’Ye for 40 minutes.

“He just wanted to understand our process—what does the design represent?” Dawkins said. “We explained it to him and broke it down. He was loving the whole idea, the whole design. He was so intrigued. He started to sell us dreams about doing business with him, and that was the meeting.”

Kanye supposedly invited the two men to dinner and promised to stay in touch, but it appears this never happened.

XXL has reached out to a rep for Kanye West for a comment.