Kanye West blasts Nike and LeBron James in new song Facts

KANYE West just escalated his feud with Nike, and even NBA superstar LeBron James isn’t safe from the crossfire.

KANYE West is still bitter over his falling out with Nike.

The hip-hop artist makes it perfectly clear what he thinks of the sports apparel mammoth in the track he released on New Year’s Day AEDT.

West reportedly collaborated with Nike to produce a line of “Air Yeezy” shoes, but the parties couldn’t come to a commercial agreement and West signed with apparel rival Adidas in 2013.

There are still a lot of unresolved issues, clearly.

Now, NBA star LeBron James has been caught in the crossfire.

Shoes are serious business.

Kanye released his new track — Facts — just a couple hours before midnight on New Year’s Eve in the United States, allowing partner Kim Kardashian West to break the news on social media.

The reality television star posted a series of images, including one of pop princess Taylor Swift wearing the shoes her husband endorses with Adidas.

FACTS pic.twitter.com/DdgLUWxrPl

— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) January 1, 2016

Kanye has previously poked fun at Nike, saying his Yeezy shoes are more popular than Air Jordan’s basketball sneakers.

In Facts, he appears to criticise Nike’s new lifetime contract with the four-time NBA Most Valuable Player award winner, reportedly worth more than $500 million.

Here are some of the lines from the new track.

“Nike out here bad, they can’t give s*** away,” West says.

Seriously.

“Nike Nike treat employees just like slaves. Gave LeBron a billi’ not to run away.”

He also takes a shot at Nike ambassador and New York Giants star receiver Odell Beckham Junior.

“On the field I’m over reckless, on my Odell Beckham. 2020, I’ma run the whole election,” he says in the song.

He also gives a shout-out to Adidas’ NBA stars James Harden and Nick Young.

“Tell Adidas that we need a million in production,” he says.

“I done told y’all, all I needed was the infrastructure. Now we hottest in the streets, it ain’t no discussion. James Harden, Swaggy P runnin’ up the budget.”

Nike just die 5 hrs b4 2016

— Nick Young (@NickSwagyPYoung) January 1, 2016

It has not been announced if the tune will feature on West’s anticipated next album which does not have a release date.

For now, he just seems pretty pleased with his kicks.

“I ain’t drop the album, but my shoes went platinum,” he says in the song.

His latest special release shoes —the Yeezeyboost 350 — officially sold out online in the United States with Adidas forced to cancel sales of the popular shoes last week.

Not that it’s a competition, but Nike reported earlier this year that LeBron was the company’s top selling ambassador in the USA, with more than $340 million worth of LeBron signature shoe sales in the 12 months before January.

Despite the latest hostility between LeBron and Kanye, we reckon they’ll both sleep pretty calmly tonight on their giant piles of money.

You can see Kanye’s new track below.

WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE

Originally published as Kanye West blasts Nike and LeBron James in new song Facts