You Like NFTs, Don't You, Kanye?
If you told me that Kanye West was plotting to dip into the metaverse, I'd have scoffed. Mere months ago, this man said, "DO NOT ASK ME TO DO A FUCKING NFT," remember. And, yet, here we are.
It was late January when Ye, dating Julia Fox and working on DONDA 2 at the time, uploaded an image of a handwritten message to his Instagram page (since deleted, natch) stating his then-current distaste for NFTs.
"STOP ASKING ME TO DO NFTs," Ye said in the Instagram post's caption. "FOR NOW I'M NOT ON THAT WAVE."
A little addendum on that note he scribbled, though — "ASK ME LATER" — suggested that perhaps he wasn't opposed to creating a YEEZY NFT in due time, which is precisely why I'm making that one SpongeBob face right now.
Trademark attorney and IP watchdog Josh Gerben posted on June 1 about a new filing made by Kanye's Mascotte Holdings, Inc. company, which does legal work on Ye's behalf (it's obviously not like Ye personally getting into the legalities of submitting copyrights for approval).
Ye's trademark registration was for "Yeezus," one of his many nicknames that's since fallen out of favor for Ye (his legal name) and Yeezy, the name of his footwear line and ongoing GAP collaboration.
This Yeezus filing would cover trademarks for projects that include amusement parks (!), toys, clothing, retail stores, campaign buttons (uh oh), beauty products, and "blockchain-based currencies and non-fungible tokens," colloquially known as cryptocurrencies and NFTs.
But don't be so sure that Kanye's actually gonna create Yeezus NFTs, at least not yet. The filings are for a 1 (b) trademark application, which designates "a bona fide intention to use the mark on the all of the goods or services listed in the application."
That doesn't mean that there's a date for Ye to launch any of these Yeezus-branded products or that he'll even create them at all (bona fide intent is not guaranteed intent).
After all, Kanye has a "Kanye West homeware" trademark in the works, which covers lots of blankets, pillowcases, and towels (and where's YEEZY HOME, BTW?).
The only certainty is that Kanye is locking down these Yeezus trademarks and might have plans to use 'em in the future.
All we can do is hope that Yeezus NFTs are less of an eyesore than bong-smoking monkeys or pixelated faces.
