Kanye West sued after allegely calling his employees “slaves”
Kanye West is facing another lawsuit as former employees of his have sued him for allegedly calling them “new slaves”. Plaintiffs filed the lawsuit in a US district court against both West and his former chief of staff, Milo Yiannopoulos.
Earlier this year, West was developing an app named YZYVSN to promote his project, Vultures. According to the lawsuit, Ye was unhappy with streaming services and didn’t want to pay Tidal, Spotify, and Apple Music to promote his album.
West hired both adult and minor developers to develop the mobile app. However, the lawsuit asserts they were subject to “forced labour and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment”.
Allegedly, the developers were arranged in a hierarchy of race and, according to the lawsuit, high-up white managers developing the app would abuse their colleagues due to their age, race, gender, sexual orientation and national origin, even calling some “new slaves”.
Both West and Yiannopoulos have been accused of forcing their employees to work long hours without pay or sleep. Furthermore, it has been alleged that Yiannopoulos called a young developer a “school shooter.”
Kanye’s wife has also been accused of behaviour similar to Ye’s while working at Adidas, as it is claimed she sent hardcore pornography to staff that was accessible by minors. She allegedly sent the movie after Kanye announced he was creating an adult film company.
According to the document, the developer group were promised $120,000 in payment from Yiannopoulous upon completion of the app. However, they never received any compensation for their work.
All workers were forced to sign NDAs, and Yiannopoulos has been accused of forcing minors to sign “volunteer” agreements, meaning they wouldn’t get paid. As a result of the above, the developers have decided to sue the pair, seeking damages for unpaid wages, overtime pay and emotional distress.
West is yet to comment on the lawsuit.
This is a developing story.