Jay-Z owns Rocawear and The 40/40 Club.
Snoop directed porn and created the "Snoop Youth Football League."
Kanye, well, Kanye's got a book. And it's not your typical dope-peddling-to-bling-wearing-Cinderella autobiography. It's a "how-to" on achieving said bling-wearing status for oneself.
Yes, Kanye wrote a self-help book.
He is simply adding a new franchise to his repertoire of success. While he may catch many fans unsuspecting, astute students of pop culture consumption aren't surprised. He's taking marketing theories like brand extension and multiple product lines to its next level.
Similarly, 50 Cent launched a self-help series last year by teaming up with MTV/Pocket Books. G-Unit Books help adolescents through fictional portrayals about "The Life: the sex, guns, and cash; the brutal highs and short lives of the players on the streets."
Kanye's book, Thank You And You're Welcome, is a "volume of 'Kanye-isms' - the creative, humorous and insightful philosophies and anecdotes used in creating my path to success." While he makes no promises of sex, guns or cash, the books does "capture the same wit, playful irony, and piercing insight found abundant in my lyrics," according to Kanye's blog.
Kanye co-authored the book with relative-newcomer, J. Sakiya Sandifer. He released three preview pages of the book, and his devoted following eagerly feasted their eyes on … well, a whole lot of white space.
Don't let the empty space or low word-count intimidate you, though! Kanye promises he's delivering "his personal message uncensored, without any five-second delay or media distortion." Not that this pitch-line makes any sense, but it surely will spark another 10,000 copies in sales.
One of the sample pages, "The Missing Banister Theory" is particularly mind-riveting. To sum up the four-line theory, "You'll fall if you have to walk a straight line 100 stories high. Even though you could easily do so while on the ground."
But in case he didn't drop his knowledge on readers hard enough, Kanye drills the thesis into craniums with the line, "Isn't it interesting how one thing changes everything?" He even offsets the sentence and changes the font color, so you can't miss it - even if you wanted to.
Kanye fans look forward to all the big words and pretty colors. If he moves more titles than G-Unit books, 50 Cent might threaten to never "write" a book again. Or maybe he'll buy thousands of his own titles.
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Thank You And You're Welcome drops later in February. You can preorder for $10 a book at http://www.kanyeuniversecity.com/
