Kanye West and Milo Yiannopoulos face serious allegations of forced labor and degrading treatment from a lawsuit filed this weekend in Los Angeles. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, claims West and his company Yeezy LLC hired developers to create the YZYVSN streaming service app, but instead of a dream project, the team encountered a hostile and racist work environment.
According to the lawsuit, eight developers began working on the YZYVSN project in March, intending to promote West’s Vultures project with Ty Dolla $ign on the new platform. West aimed to avoid promotional fees to major streaming services like Tidal and Apple Music by using this app. However, the developers allege they were subjected to racist and degrading language from West and Yiannopoulos, West’s chief of staff.
The complaint also accuses West’s wife, Bianca Censori, of sharing a file with pornographic content to a group that included a 14-year-old working on the project. The suit highlights the lack of safeguards to protect underage workers from exposure to explicit material while working on the Yeezy Porn project.
The remote international team, who connected via platforms like Discord, Zoom, and Slack, claim they were “regularly and viciously bullied” based on personal characteristics such as age, race, gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity. The lawsuit mentions that team members were derogatorily called “slaves” and had to participate in chatrooms named “Slaves” and “New Slaves,” a reference to West’s 2013 track “New Slaves.”
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Promises of $120,000 in pay for completing the app were allegedly undermined by threats of termination and non-payment unless nondisclosure agreements were signed. Additionally, minors were forced to sign on as “volunteers,” exempting them from payment. The team also reported frequent use of racist language by Yeezy’s white management, with Yiannopoulos allegedly sending a brown-skinned emoji to a Black staffer and another younger member being called a school shooter.
The lawsuit seeks unpaid wages, attorney fees, and damages for emotional distress. It accuses West and his team of forced labor and cruel treatment under the Alien Tort statute, failure to pay wages and overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act, and several violations of the California Fair Employment and Housing Act.
West’s attorney, Brian Brumfield, has not responded to requests for comment. Meanwhile, Yiannopoulos dismissed the complaint on Twitter as the actions of a disgruntled employee.
The allegations, if proven true, reveal a deeply troubling work environment and highlight serious labor violations within one of the most prominent brands in the music and fashion industry.
