WATCH: Antonio Brown linking up with Kanye West amid production of new music
Antonio Brown and Kanye West are each one of the most polarizing men in their respective fields, so it is only fitting that they should be friends and business partners. When the rapper established his own company, Donda, Brown was put in charge of its sports apparel line.
Now the former wide receiver has posted a video of himself seemingly analyzing music with West:
As his career on the gridiron remains undecided, Brown has taken to composing music, releasing his second single literally hours after he walked out on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' game against the New York Jets. Now it seems he is preparing to release a follow-up to his debut record Paradigm...
How Antonio Brown's friendship with Kanye West began
As two of the most controversial personalities at the time, Antonio Brown and Kanye West had seemed like the perfect fit - a pair of very prideful people with a history of bad behavior. But it was not always meant to be this way.
Early in 2022, Brown sat down with Complex to discuss his then-nascent partnership with West. He said meeting the rapper occurred merely by chance:
“It was just by the grace of God. I was at Craig’s [restaurant], having dinner in LA with Rich, my guy at Fashion Nova. And I ran into Kanye randomly at Craig’s. We got haircuts at Craig’s. It was totally out of the blue, and we just started hanging out in LA."
That casual encounter eventually blossomed into a friendship that soon became a professional bond as well. Shortly after he was released by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Brown was named the company president of West's athletic apparel brand Donda Sports. He had teased it in the same interview:
“I don’t think there’s a lot of fashion lines for athletes, wearing fashionable and comfortable clothes, so with a guy like Kanye West, being able to partner with him and work with him to provide more creative, genius ideas for fashion looks for athletes in general.”
The two have been very close since then, with the former Pittsburgh Steelers star even being one of those who defended West later that year when the rapper made anti-Semitic comments: