Billionaire mogul Kanye West has signed a 10-year deal with worldwide clothing and accessory retailer, Gap. The rapper turned fashion designer turned creative designer has recently announced his new collaboration, named Yeezy Gap, slated for a release in the former half of 2021. The mere announcement of this collaboration caused Gap’s stock price to surge by 42% after their recent struggles before and amidst Covid-19.  This, however, marks the second occasion the two have worked together. Kanye West, before his meteoric rise within the hip-hop scene, worked as a store clerk in a Gap in Chicago and it has remained significant in his artistic endeavours since.

Before the money, fame and controversies, a 15-year-old Kanye West always had a passion for fashion. Kanye recalls not even being able to afford the clothes he would sell at GAP, even with his employee discount. He chronicles his experience there in ‘Spaceship’ on his 2004 debut album, The College Dropout. The song details the gruelling life of a young black man in Chicago and the melancholy he felt working a dead-end job, void of prospects. In the song he says ‘Let’s go back, back to the Gap/Look at my check—wasn’t no scratch’ – a line which is oddly prophetic now.

Kanye has always been hugely influential in fashion. From his early days as the ‘Louis Vuitton Don’ to his role in popularising street-wear, it is hard to argue that he has not been the single greatest driving force for the fashion zeitgeist. Considering his current success, it seems strange to look back at a time where he was largely rejected by the fashion industry. He chronicles much of his frustration in his Yeezus era – his sixth studio album, realised in 2013. In ‘New Slaves’ he writes: ‘Doing clothes you would have thought I had help/But they wasn’t satisfied unless I picked the cotton myself,’ criticising the reluctance of the industry to let Kanye design regularly, raising issues of racism. A particularly poignant critique when we look at the deficit of black creative directors of luxury brands.

Early on in his fashion career, once he had overcome the previously insurmountable hurdles faced by the hip-hop community, Kanye frequently spoke about pricing. Kanye has been outspoken about his complex relationship with materialism and it has been a constant theme running throughout all of his careers. In his third single from The College Dropout, ‘All Falls Down’, Kanye raps: ‘Man I promise, I’m so self-conscious/That’s why you always see me with at least one of my watches/Rollies and Pasha’s done drove me crazy/I can’t even pronounce nothing, pass that Ver-say-see!/Then I spent 400 bucks on this/Just to be like n**** you ain’t up on this!’ Cognitive dissonance was apparent with regards to his passion for, and desire to create, high quality products as well as beautiful clothing that is available to the masses. His line of YEEZY apparel is priced similarly to other luxury brands, with cardigans and coats being sold for over a thousand pounds. He has long acknowledged that this makes them unattainable to the majority of people.

Here we see Kanye’s persisting interest with the Gap come up once again.  He infamously voiced his desire to become the creative director of the Gap in 2015, and was ridiculed. This desire stemmed from his childhood where he recalls picking out clothing with his parents un-cognisant of the price of the things he chose and the despair he felt when he was he realised his family were unable to afford them. Through the Gap, Kanye hopes to be able to make clothing at a much more accessible price point.

With this new partnership with Gap, we see Kanye take another step furrowed towards his ultimate goal, as well as progressing towards a new one. One big issue currently faced by working-class Americans is the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs to cheaper places in Asia. The promise of ‘bringing back jobs’ to America was something that contributed significantly to Trump’s election and is a very real concern for many Americans. Kanye has recently been attempting to alleviate some of these issues and has been making progress in doing so. His new Foam Runners were all manufactured in the U.S. and this new partnership is also hoping to generate more jobs in the U.S. through its design and manufacturing.

From selling shirts to wearing them, to designing shirts and then going back to selling them, Kanye has battled with racism in the fashion industry and his own internal strife with materialism. New problems have arisen and new solutions are being tested. Kanye continues to take strides in realising his ultimate vision, each step he takes he faces more and more backlash yet he continues to move forward. And now, 16 years later, he has finally gone back, back to the gap.

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