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Kanye West Vaults from Broke to Billions with Yeezy in Demand

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11–20 of 36 posts

Re: Kanye West Vaults from Broke to Billions with Yeezy in Demand

#11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but Kanye is actually generating billions in revenue and is one of the biggest cultural icons right now which imo gives him more of a pass to be weird. Neumann was more of a conman that was only good at turning billions of dollars into...billions of dollars of debt. And don't forget his weird cultish entourage.

Kanye is both a cultural icon, and also regularly sounds unhinged. That’s not a value statement, just an observation.

A corollary observation would be that many very pivotal figures in history regularly sounded "unhinged".

Re: Kanye West Vaults from Broke to Billions with Yeezy in Demand

#14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but Kanye is actually generating billions in revenue and is one of the biggest cultural icons right now which imo gives him more of a pass to be weird. Neumann was more of a conman that was only good at turning billions of dollars into...billions of dollars of debt. And don't forget his weird cultish entourage.

How do artists actually collect this kind of cash these days, now that no one buys CDs? Wouldn't he need a trillion or so streaming listeners to generate a billion dollars? Edit: never mind, looks like he's selling sneakers.

> How do artists actually collect this kind of cash these days, now that no one buys CDs?

For big artists it’s mainly going on tour. Doing a tour tends to generate more money for an artist than the album itself and it’s been this way for years now.

Ed Sheeran’s tour grossed almost a billion dollars ($776.200.000) .. that’s 1 tour. He did 2 before that.

Re: Kanye West Vaults from Broke to Billions with Yeezy in Demand

#15
post #9

> He calls it the “next frontier of living for humanity.” Sounds like something Adam Neumann would say.

One of the most cynical things about his entire persona is that a few months ago he was ranting on about black people being brainwashed and that they'd need to make economically sensible choices and pretty much the entire 'bootstrap' speech, and then he's out there selling overpriced sneakers to kids calling it the next frontier for humanity.

Those two don't contradict, he probably thinks that people who can't afford sneakers shouldn't buy them whereas those who can should buy his.

Re: Kanye West Vaults from Broke to Billions with Yeezy in Demand

#16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but Kanye is actually generating billions in revenue and is one of the biggest cultural icons right now which imo gives him more of a pass to be weird. Neumann was more of a conman that was only good at turning billions of dollars into...billions of dollars of debt. And don't forget his weird cultish entourage.

Kanye is both a cultural icon, and also regularly sounds unhinged. That’s not a value statement, just an observation.

Perhaps it's marketing. Observable reality !== reality

Re: Kanye West Vaults from Broke to Billions with Yeezy in Demand

#17
Kanye has long had quite extreme ambitions. A few years ago he Tweeted an org chart for a company he called "Donda." It ranges from what you would reasonably expect ("Music Production", "Merchandising," "Web Music Store") to the absurd ("Cancer Research," "Hovercrafts", "Luxury Cloud Service")

https://img.thedailybeast.com/image/upload/v1/articles/2016/...

Re: Kanye West Vaults from Broke to Billions with Yeezy in Demand

#18
post #17

Kanye has long had quite extreme ambitions. A few years ago he Tweeted an org chart for a company he called "Donda." It ranges from what you would reasonably expect ("Music Production", "Merchandising," "Web Music Store") to the absurd ("Cancer Research," "Hovercrafts", "Luxury Cloud Service") https://img.thedailybeast.com/image/upload/v1/articles/2016/...

Hey, if he wants to fund cancer research and alternative energy, he can be my guest...

On the other hand some of those are silly. "Emoticon Autocorrect"

Well, not every crazy billionaire can be as good as Musk.

Re: Kanye West Vaults from Broke to Billions with Yeezy in Demand

#19
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do artists actually collect this kind of cash these days, now that no one buys CDs? Wouldn't he need a trillion or so streaming listeners to generate a billion dollars? Edit: never mind, looks like he's selling sneakers.

It's more than just 'CDs' or 'Downloads' for artists these days, which which is pretty much not what they just do to get revenue. It's from their merchandise, investments in other companies and also founding their own companies which actually makes them their billions. Think of Dr. Dre's Beats, Jay-Z's Tidal and investments in Uber. Now Kanye's Yeezy brand too.

>Think of Dr. Dre's Beats, Jay-Z's Tidal and investments in Uber. Now Kanye's Yeezy brand too.

Don't think of the time Soulja Boy tried selling bootleg game emulators[0], though.

[0]https://www.geek.com/games/finally-soulja-boy-is-selling-boo...

Re: Kanye West Vaults from Broke to Billions with Yeezy in Demand

#20
> Alexandra Fletcher, a Bank of America spokeswoman, confirmed the authenticity of the document reviewed by Bloomberg. Prepared in September, it hasn’t been updated since the coronavirus pandemic began. The valuation of “future royalties generated in the footwear category is estimated from $1.75 billion to $3 billion,” according to the bank’s preliminary analysis.

It sounds like that preliminary analysis will be revised... downward.

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