Hip-hop star Kanye West has opened a pop-up shop next door to his fiancee Kim Kardashian's boutique, Dash, in Los Angeles. The "Yeesus tour" store sells T-shirts and bags featuring the Confederate flag, according to the Daily Mail.
One shirt depicts a skeletal grim reaper wrapped in the Confederate flag and carrying a scythe. Another T-shirt bears the words "I ain't coming down" with a skull in the foreground and the flag behind it.
The Confederate flag, also known as the rebel flag or Southern Cross, has a convoluted American history. For some Southerners, it's a symbol of pride. For many, though, it's a symbol of the South that once firmly stood behind slavery when the rest of the nation moved toward abolition.
West, however, doesn't seem to care much about what feelings his music or his new merchandise provoke. "React how you want," he said during an interview with radio station Los Angeles 97.1 AMP, the Daily Mail noted. "Any energy you got is good energy. I represented slavery, my abstract take on what I know about it; I wrote New Slaves. So I took the Confederate flag and made it my flag. What are you going to do?"
Read more at the Daily Mail.
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