Cali Thornhill DeWitt, who lives in Los Angeles, was wandering around Tokyo recently when he got a call from Kanye West. The rapper and fashion designer was preparing to debut his latest clothing collection, Yeezy Season 3, and his new album, The Life of Pablo, at Madison Square Garden during New York Fashion Week. So he wanted to talk to Thornhill DeWitt about a collaboration.

At the time, Cali was visiting Nakano Broadway, a multistory shopping complex in one of Tokyo’s most populous neighborhoods. Like something out of Blade Runner or an early William Gibson novel, the mall evokes the recent past’s notions of what our dingy, dystopian future might look like. Its floors are crammed with video arcades, action-figure dispensaries, vintage-streetwear shops, and other tiny warrens catering to every flavor of nerdy obsession. Nakano Broadway is out on the subcultural fringes—an improbable, though not entirely inappropriate, place for Kanye to have tracked down Cali.

cali thornhill dewitt Photo: Courtesy of Cali Thornhill DeWitt

In March 2015, West had shown up at the launch event for Tidal, Jay Z’s music-streaming service, in a black sweatshirt with gothic white lettering. It bore his mother’s name, Donda, over the heart and featured a tribute to her emblazoned on the back:

Forever in Our Hearts

Donda West

Only One

Tell Nori About Me

No one ever took credit for its design, but online commenters noted its resemblance to a series of shirts that Cali has been making for some time.

Nearly a year later, at the Madison Square Garden event, concession stands sold Life of Pablo merchandise that resembled that Donda West tribute shirt, but with song lyrics from the new album on the back and “I feel like Pablo” printed on the chest. Afterward, plenty of people assumed that Cali had designed that merchandise, as well. At the time, though, he kept quiet about it.

But now he’s talking. When asked about designing the Pablo shirts, he tells Vogue.com, “I didn’t come out and say that I did it. I didn’t come out and say that I didn’t do it. But everyone who hit me up for interviews, I just told them, ‘No, thanks.’ Because to me, it’s a symptom of the times: People wanna be known so much, you know?” His only acknowledgment of the West merch at the time, albeit oblique, was to post a photo on his Tumblr, without explanation, of his uncle and a neighbor wearing Pablo jackets. “I haven’t talked about it publicly before ’cause I didn’t really feel the need to.”