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Nike Responds After Lil Nas X ‘Satan Shoes’ Spark Backlash

“Nike did not release nor design these shoes.”

   DailyWire.com
Lil Nas X attends the Tom Ford AW/20 Fashion Show at Milk Studios on February 07, 2020 in Los Angeles, California.
David Crotty/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images

Rapper Lil Nas X sparked backlash this weekend over his new so-called “Satan shoes.” The musician designed a pair of Nike sneakers that apparently include a drop of human blood mixed with ink, of which only 666 pairs are available for purchase, staying inline with the satanic theme.

Nike said Sunday, however, that the company has nothing to do with the release or the design of the shoes. The company stopped short of denouncing the Satan-themed kicks, though.

In a Snopes “fact-check,” the left-wing website confirmed that the shoes are indeed Nike Air Max 97s, adding, “Although the shoes are Nikes, a Nike spokesperson told us the company has nothing to do with the creation or sale of the ‘Satan shoes.'”

“Nike did not release nor design these shoes,” a spokesperson for Nike told Snopes via email.

The rapper reportedly worked with the company MSCHF to design the hellish sneakers.

As highlighted in the report from The Daily Wire, the Lil Nas X, whose real name is Montero Lamar Hill, included satanic imagery on the shoes that is coupled with Nas’ new music video, which depicts the singer giving Satan a lap dance.

“The so-called ‘Satan Shoes,’ which are 666 individually numbered pairs of Nike Air Max 97s that were modified by the company MSCHF, will be going for $1,018 beginning March 29,” the report added.

The sneakers and new music video sparked backlash online and calls for boycotts of Nas’ music and even Nike kicks.

The “Old Town Road” singer suggested he was being bullied by the response and wouldn’t revert back to making clean music.

“I made the decision to create the music video,” he wrote via social media. “I am an adult. [I] am not gonna spend my entire career trying to cater to your children. [T]hat is your job.”

Nas acknowledged in January that his core audience is children, according to an interview with NPR. “Before releasing his Satan Shoes, Hill appeared with Elmo on ‘Sesame Street’ and wrote a children’s book called ‘C Is For Country,'” The Daily Wire highlighted Sunday.

The Daily Wire’s Jon Brown detailed the satanic imagery in Nas’ “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” video:

Hill’s infernal footwear coincides with the release of the graphic new music video for his new song “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” which trended at the top of YouTube with more than 25 million views as of Sunday afternoon. Replete with biblical and occult imagery, the video depicts Hill being sexually seduced in the Garden of Eden by Satan in serpentine form, after which the camera cuts to the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which is famous for its role in the Book of Genesis and the fall of man.

Etched into the tree’s bark is an ancient Greek quote from Plato’s “Symposium” that translates: “Now when our first form had been cut in two, each half in longing for its fellow would come to it again.” The passage is a reference to ancient pagan views of dualism and sexuality, that humans were originally male, female, and androgynous, and that homosexuality is an attempt to recover one’s primal nature.

After being stoned to death by judgmental figures ostensibly condemning him for his sexuality, Hill then ascends toward an angelic being in heaven before sliding down to hell on a stripper pole. He discovers the devil sitting on his throne encircled with Latin that translates: “They condemn what they don’t understand.” After giving a lap dance to Satan, who happens to be wearing the expensive Nike shoes he is selling, Hill snaps his neck and assumes his horned crown.

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