Kanye West's Friend, Malik Yusef, Used Ye's Former Charity to Help Pull Off Alleged Fashion Week Scam

The man who allegedly duped a high-end fashion house into believing they signed Kanye West to perform at their NYFW show did so by invoking the charity Kanye used to have that was named after his late mother.

Philipp Plein thought they booked Kanye to perform at an event that was to take place on February 11, according to the contract, which The Blast has obtained.

The deal was between Plein, Kanye West, and Malik Yusef, a spoken word poet who has been nominated for 24 Grammy Awards, winning six.

According to the contract, West was supposed to show up five hours ahead of time, walk the red carpet, attend the catwalk presentation, the cocktail party and the dinner. He was supposed to perform three songs with an orchestra and the deal called for Kanye to not wear any visible brands or logos other than Philip Plein — though he was allowed to wear Yeezys.

TheBlast.com

The contract stated that Plein would pay $500,000 to the Donda Social Program Foundation and that six children from the foundation would appear at the event (dressed in a Phillip Plein "total look"). They were also allowed a travel budget for Kanye, Yusef, an orchestra and the kids totaling $170,000.

According to our sources, three wires were sent on January 31 — one for $600,000 and another for $150,000 — to Donda S. House Inc. Another $150,000 was sent to Burundi Partlow Consulting, who we're told put Plein's reps in touch with Yusef months ago to make the deal in the first place.

We're told Kanye not only knew nothing about any of this, he received none of the money.

The contract has Malik Yusef's signature and a stamp of a signature above Kanye West's name.

TheBlast.com

Kanye West started Donda's House after his mother, Donda West, passed away in 2007. The rapper is no longer involved in the charity, which has since renamed itself Art of Culture Incorporated.

A rep for Art of Culture tells The Blast they had nothing to do with this deal, knew nothing about it, and have nothing to do with Malik Yusef.

Rhymefest, Kanye's childhood friend who runs the organization, tells The Blast, "We don't want the work we are doing to be sullied by this situation. It is unfortunate."

A rep for Phillip Plein tells The Blast, "We were beyond excited to work with [Kanye West] but unfortunately an individual pretended to be part of his management team and acted without Kanye’s knowledge, capitalizing on a former friendship with him. Unfortunately, we too were affected by this misrepresentation."

The Blast reached out to Malik Yusef who said he was "not aware" of any issues related to the deal.

He added, "Kanye and me have a foundation together that we started" but our Kanye sources say if there is a foundation, Kanye has no active involvement in it and the organization would not have the authorization to contract on his behalf.