“Due to what has happened so severely when the red shoes hit the runway, I was forced to change my name to Martin Louis the King, jr. Address me as such.”Kanye West, video blog

I’ve come to accept that rappa-ternt-fashionista Kanye West has a very strange of humor, a derivative of his self-absorbed nature. Of this we’re all aware, so perhaps we should grade his buffoonery on a curve. However, likening the fruits of his design work to the efforts of Dr. Martin Luther King, jr.--who'd likely be opposed to the green-eyed monster that has consumed Mr. West--is some astonishingly ignorant shit.

[Blogger's Note: I just watched Cookin' With Coolio (the scrimp episode) and it doesn't hurt nearly as bad after this.]

I first watched this clip in the presence of a white man. In an anxious combination of disappointment and pure bewilderment, he told me that he was going to file a motion to take our short-ass Black History Month away. Clearly we don’t deserve it anymore if on the heels of the illest MLK weekend evarr and a significant partial realization of his dream, we can still compare Dr. King’s life and work to… a shoe design.

A lazy-ass shoe design, at that.

When Yeezy does something for black people other than direct them to a new ass-ignorant portal in which to funnel their non-existent money, he can come back and we'll talk about giving him a civil rights pioneer's moniker.

As I tweeted yesterday, I don’t got anything for the sneakerphile crowd. If Kanye’s the Louis Vuitton Don, then Ronnie’s the New Balance Talent. With that said, my uncle came out of prison after doing a 12-year stretch, and I swear he showed up at my mom’s house wearing the same Sergio Tacchini jacket I’d always associated him with and shoes bearing the very design Kanye is so proud to display, that he’s now the MLK of kicks.

He had a dream that one day this nation would rise up and live out the content of its creed. That little black boys and little black girls could save their pittance to purchase devil-red Louies and be fly right along side the whites. That our only Louis representation wouldn't have to be fraudulent. That... Ah, you get the point.

My confusion comes in the egregiousness of the name association. With all the damn Louies we have to choose from, why even put MLK’s name in it? Kanye could have had his choice of Louis Vuitton Gossett, Julia Louis-Vuitton Dreyfus, Rafer Skip-to-my-Loius Alston without penalty. Louis Armstrong might even bellow a throaty, improvised medley about the new devil-red Vuitton sneaker. Martin Luther King would probably look at it and shake his head.

“Oh, snap! A Louis Vuitton tennis shoe! What will they think of next?”

Immediately followed by:

“I really should have approval over this kind of thing.”

From the onset of Kanye’s suggestion that he’d like to intern at Louis Vuitton, I had a feeling his ego wouldn’t allow him to stay in his proverbial lane with the rest of the kids who aren’t yet done with college.

LV Internship Day One:

During orientation Kanye makes known that he is not to be addressed, touched or made eye contact with by any of the other interns. He asserts that by week’s end, the design he’s been contemplating for all of 12 days will not only be on shelves, but the highest selling piece of merchandise in Louis Vuitton’s history. At lunch hour, Kanye disappears into Ray Ray DeWitt’s car and does not return for the day.

Day Two:

Kanye does not report to assignment.

Day Three:

(See: Day Two)

Day Four:

Kanye arrives at offices around 3:30pm and backhands a fellow intern for saying "Hello." Without breaking stride, Kanye asks his project director why the shoe design he left in red and black Crayola hasn’t been manufactured and sold yet. After explaining that he’d been at the Louis Vuitton store the past three days waiting for the red shoe to shelf, Kanye has finally had enough. He violently clears the desks around him and threatens more damage if he’s not immediately allowed to speak with “Louis.” Once West is informed that Vuitton had been dead more than a century, he makes creepy claims that he is now "Martin Louis the King" and will oversee all production and personnel decisions going forward.

…and here you have the ugly-ass retro kick with the LV logo Kanye West boasts about today.

Questions? Comments? Requests? Was I even [Glenn] close to what you’d imagine a Kanye internship to be like? ron@ronmexicocity.com

P.S.: Don't nann nigga call Kanye "Louis Vuitton Don" but Kanye.

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