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Kanye West Stops Traffic In NYC

By Caitlin Johnstone
Published on: 13:31 PST, Mar 19, 2016

Kanye brought traffic in New York to a standstill yesterday when the line for West’s latest pop-up store stretched around the block, prompting police to cordon off the entire area to prevent an incident.

Despite being Friday rush hour, police were forced to close Wooster Street, between Spring and Broome Streets, just a few blocks from the notoriously busy Holland Tunnel.

The shop, at 83 Wooster in New York City, is inspired by his latest album release, The Life Of Pablo, and was full of fashion designed by the man himself.

The shop will be open all weekend, through tomorrow. Fans are eager to get their hands on various items of clothing, including designs commemorating Kanye’s mother, Donda West, and his wife Kim’s father, Robert Kardashian.

Buyers are going nuts for hoodies with the words “I Feel Like Pablo” selling for $95, beanies for $35, kids shirts for $40, and kids hoodies for $50.

At the high end of the collection, there are burgundy bomber jackets for $350, and $400 vintage Levi denim jackets featuring the tracklisting for the album in handwriting, presumably Kanye’s.

In order to try and keep a lid on non-fans buying up big and selling it online for an exorbitant margin, there was officially a two item per customer limit put in place, but not before Billboard reported people leaving the store with “multiple clear shopping bags of merch, a sight that would have made Kanye — who once tweeted ‘not smiling makes me smile’ — beam,” and that at least one shopper they spoke to had “copped three jackets, two hats and several shirts” purely for the purpose of re-sell.

One re-seller reportedly sold one of the $90 Pablo sweaters within minutes of leaving the store. At $250, Joseph “Stack” Acevedo made more than twice its ticket price.

“This is how we support our families,” he told the New York Daily News. He didn’t think Kanye would mind. “I’m living the life of Pablo!”

This is not the first pop-up venture for Kanye. He promoted his previous album, Yeezus, with pop-up stores in various cities around the U.S.

In other Kanye news, a giant mural of an artist’s impression of West kissing himself has been spotted in Chippendale, Sydney, Australia. Aussie graffiti artist Scott Marsh painted the story-high homage to the viral photoshopped picture of Kanye kissing Kanye.

Australia appears to be trying to make a name for itself as the home of Kanye and Kim graffiti, with the streets of Melbourne sporting a three-story-high painting of Kim Kardashian’s famous nudie pic.

And Bill Maher paid, what could be considered by the wanna-be POTUS Kanye, a backhanded compliment yesterday when he compared him to the Republican front-runner Donald Trump.

Maher blamed 30 years of “worshipping self-esteem” for the rise of Trump and said “Every time a parent sides with a kid over a teacher, they are creating the Donald Trumps of tomorrow.” He added that it’s a “bad idea to teach kids that anyone who doesn’t agree that you are fabulous and perfect in every way is just a hater, and they can suck it. Sound like anyone we know? Have you noticed that nobody ever does anything better than Donald Trump? He’s the white Kanye West.”

Kanye West is yet to comment as to whether that’s an insult or a compliment.

[Photo by Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images]

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