As you all no doubt know by now, rapper Kanye West went on one of his inane Twitter rants last week. It’s usually easy to ignore them; as great an artist as he may or may not be, West is little more than a sexist, egotistical, immature man in my eyes.
That said, when I learnt that this particular rant was primarily composed around a business pitch, my interest piqued.
West has never had the kind of success in business that the likes of Dr. Dre or Nicki Minaj have managed. Some put that down to bad luck or advice. Others point the finger at West’s persona. Whatever the case may be, this wasn’t the first time he’s taken to social media to unintelligently champion his ‘great’, ‘entrepreneurial’ ‘ideas’.
In 2012, he announced Donda, a company that he proclaimed would “pick up where Steve Jobs left off“.
He released the chart above to better define his vision. At least, that seemed to be the intention. What West offered was a list of terms, but not even the slightest glimpse of what each meant, or what he actually would use any funding for. His pitch, for lack of a better term, wouldn’t even have received a passing grade in Business 101.
West apparently hasn’t learnt much since Donda failed to launch. As a celebrity, he evidently believes that even his most meagre whisper will end up echoing around the world. Still, the decision to request $1 billion from CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, via Twitter, was a bizarre, and ultimately foolish move. What’s worse, he claimed himself more deserving of the money than ‘starving children in Africa’. West made this statement barely two-and-a-half months after Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan announced they would donate $45 billion to international charity courses over the rest of their natural lives.
Any startup founder would have either been politely shown the door by this point, or realised there mistake. Not West though. Instead he re-posted the Donda chart, like suddenly it was meant to make sense.
To those who have been willing to discuss his ideas in private, West has proven himself as big-headed and insulting as in public. Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh clashed with West while trying to advise him on business structure. West later told writer Bret Easton Ellis on his podcast “I got into this giant argument with the head of Zappos that he’s trying to tell me what I need to focus on. Meanwhile, he sells all this shit product to everybody, his whole thing is based off of selling shit product.”
Zappos responded rather well, and everyone had a laugh. Except West, probably.
Nobody’s really laughing now. Word is that West’s outbursts have started to impact on the Kardashian empire, especially after he took to Twitter to confront sporting brand Puma over their decision to offer Kylie Jenner a position as a brand ambassador. Recent clashes with ex-girlfriends and the crew of Saturday Night Live aren’t helping him much either.
The worrying thing is that West may still find funding. His fans have attempted to chip in to get him out of debt via a GoFundMe campaign, but most donations have come from spammers who know the campaign won’t succeed, but want to use the contributors section to promote their own crazy ideas.
It might seem unrealistic that he would get any support, but four years on, Donda has been gaining traction, with releases of music and experimental films in collaboration with Jay Z’s Roc Nation.
Overall, West sets a bad precedent for an internet-obsessed generation that looks on him as some kind of musical god. There’s no doubt he worked hard to achieve what he has managed in the world of hip-hop, but outside of that, his track record proves just how little he knows. Still, at a point where very few artists with entrepreneurial side-projects actually talk about their other business, West is shouting it to anyone who is listening.
Here’s hoping the next round of pioneers looking for advice on how to ‘make it’ aren’t paying too much attention. He’s done enough damage as is.