Reserving agent Cara Lewis is as soon as once more representing Kanye West, working to revive his affluent touring profession that she architected within the 2000s and 2010s earlier than he meticulously destroyed it after firing her in 2016.
Lewis has already had some early success, touchdown West and Ty Dolla $ign a headlining slot at Rolling Loud in Los Angeles March 14 to advertise their new chart-topping album, Vultures 1. However in the long run, Lewis faces way more tough odds undoing the harm West wrought on his personal profession, burning bridges with promoters, racking up multi-million-dollar lawsuits with distributors and manufacturing corporations and making vitriolic and antisemitic statements which have gotten him banned by all the main expertise businesses.
That leaves little or no runaway for Lewis — “a self-described Jewish woman from the Bronx,” based on a 2023 profile in Pollstar — to relaunch West’s profession. The saga is the discuss of the city in each Los Angeles and New York, with greater than six high-level reserving brokers telling Billboard that Lewis’ capacity to provide enterprise alternatives for West can be decided by West himself.
“He’s nonetheless on his bulls—, which suggests he’s nonetheless in self-destruct mode and might’t work,” mentioned one outstanding reserving agent who spoke on the situation of anonymity however mentioned their company was approached about representing West and handed. “I don’t take something he says at face worth. He must go away for not less than a yr and get sober.”
Lewis didn’t reply to a request for remark.
“There’s not likely any upside for Cara,” says one other reserving agent who was additionally pitched on representing West. “She’s going to spend most of her time being informed ‘no’ by promoters who’ve been burned by Kanye up to now. And any gigs she does land for him are going to be nightmares to get via.”
West has lately posted on social media about his reserving challenges. On Feb 6, he took to Instagram to complain in regards to the lack of curiosity from main arenas in internet hosting a listening get together for his new album.
“We simply bought out the United Heart in seven minutes,” he shared in a video. “It’s the one area that I had entry to up to now yr. And after I name, folks say there’s no [availabilities] for me, and why that’s.”
West made the video shortly after the O2 Area in London rejected the same request. He adopted up that video by asking followers to contact Lewis for reserving alternatives, exhibiting a textual content message Lewis had despatched to West expressing confidence about his future prospects. The publish exhibiting the textual content message was later deleted by West.
Kanye first started working with Lewis in 2006 when she was on the William Morris Company, which turned William Morris Endeavor (WME) in 2009. In 2012, Lewis give up WME to hitch CAA, bringing along with her high-profile purchasers like Eminem, Ne-Yo, T.I. and West. Collectively, West and Lewis developed a touring technique that generated $160 million in ticket gross sales, together with his Watch the Throne Tour with Jay-Z, which generated $75 million in gross sales and was the highest-grossing tour ever when it wrapped, based on Billboard Boxscore.
Had West not stopped touring in 2016, he might have simply generated a whole lot of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in income from concert events and festivals within the years since. Even with none common earnings from touring for the final seven years, West nonetheless ranks because the fifth highest-grossing hip-hop act in Billboard Boxscore historical past.
However as an alternative of constructing upon their success, West fired Lewis and CAA and signed with UTA in March 2016. The Wrap reported on the time that West left CAA to increase his performing portfolio following the success of his cameo in Zoolander 2.
West returned to CAA a yr later, however by then Lewis was already gone, working to launch her personal boutique company after she and CAA parted methods in November 2016.
Whereas Lewis was establishing her new enterprise, issues actually began going downhill for West. In October 2016, moments earlier than taking the stage on the Meadows Music & Arts Pageant in New York, West realized that his spouse, Kim Kardashian, had been robbed at gunpoint in her Paris lodge room. He ended up canceling the set in order that he might fly to France to be along with her.
The Paris incident additionally led him to cancel two dates on his Saint Pablo Tour, in the end returning to the highway 5 days afterward Oct. 7 to carry out a present on the United Heart. Followers seen that West had appeared withdrawn and erratic on the tour, which finally ended 20 dates early in Sacramento on Nov. 19, 2016, when West carried out three songs earlier than launching right into a tirade about Fb, Jay-Z, Hillary Clinton and Beyoncé earlier than strolling offstage. West was hospitalized two days later following a welfare test performed by the LAPD.
An investigation by insurance coverage firm Lloyds of London, which West had employed to insure the tour, alleged that he was abusing alcohol and marijuana on the tour. The 2 events finally settled the dispute, court docket paperwork present.
In 2022, West was sued by Phantom Labs, an organization he employed to assist produce the Free Larry Hoover profit live performance with rapper Drake in December 2021. Six months after the live performance, Phantom Labs sued West, saying it was owed “$7 million by Kanye in excellent charges for work on numerous tasks over the previous yr,” together with the Free Larry Hoover live performance and his 2022 look at Coachella, which Kanye canceled days earlier than he was to take the stage.
“Whereas West’s historical past is well-known, I wouldn’t say the curtain has closed on his profession fairly but,” mentioned one promoter who has adopted West’s profession and didn’t wish to be named on this article. “I’m going to order judgment till after his Rolling Loud look. If he pulls off a giant present and other people view it as profitable, that can purchase him a variety of goodwill and time. Maybe a few of [his] former companions may be persuaded to work out an settlement with him. Or possibly he’ll blow the entire thing up once more. Both approach it is going to be entertaining to look at, and we are able to all say we had been there to see it occur.”