Kanye West threatens Melbourne burger shop with legal action

A Melbourne burger joint has been forced to change its entire brand after rapper Kanye West reportedly threatened legal action.

'College Dropout Burger' is a burger restaurant in Ivanhoe, Melbourne, and until recently, it paid homage to the rapper, with the restaurant's name being the same as Mr West's debut album.

The owner of the restaurant, Mark Elkhouri, received a cease and desist letter from Mr West's lawyers earlier this month.

Back on June 6, the restaurant announced all references to Mr West would be removed "following the instructions and concerns" from Mr West, his holding company and his legal representatives.

The burger joint said it was taking steps to remove the crowned bear logo, eliminate song and album references on the menu, destroy or alter artworks or murals and "no longer assert that we are directly inspired by Ye or his music".

"We have no interest to engage in any legal proceedings; we will continue to be inspired by and support Ye, just not publicly and not within our brand(s)," the post from June 6 said.

This week, College Dropout Burger removed the logo of the crowned bear, with the outline being all that remains.

"Insert logo here. OK THANKS BYE," it says, with the Y and the E crossed out in "bye" – a reference to Mr West.

Mr Elkhouri expressed he was disappointed by Mr West's decision to pursue legal action when he spoke with 3AW this week, adding he gets his creative inspiration from him.

"The idea of the whole concept was to kind of celebrate Kanye West and kind of show a different side of his, you know, his music and his artwork and fashion line," he told 3AW.

He pointed out like many other artists, Mr West seeks inspiration from other musicians and in Mr Elkhouri's mind, he was doing just that.

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Since Mr Elkhouri spoke out about the letter from Mr West's lawyers on Instagram, there's been a lot of attention on his business.

Even the rapper has been looking at the College Dropout Burger's Instagram stories.

The restaurant has updated the names of the burgers, now highlighting celebrities who dropped out of college, like Bill Gates and Brad Pitt.

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