Dr. Dre, the hip-hop mogul, is adamant to make a name for himself in the consumer electronics business. He obviously has a pretty ambitious goal as he pictures himself up there, next to Apple. He’s already in the phone business, will have its first cell phone coming out soon on the Verizon Wireless network and is also involved in Chrysler. According to GlobalGrind, which caught up with Dre yesterday at the launch of the book and art instillation CULO by Mazzucco, he wants to “take over everything with a speaker”. Of Apple, he said:
Laugh all you will, but Dre ain’t pulling any of this out of thin air. The man co-founded Beats Electronics in 2006, an electronics company, with Interscope Geffen A&M Records CEO Jimmy Iovine. The company is renowned for the Beats by Dr. Dre headphones, but they also sell celebrity-endorsed lines by Lady Gaga, Diddy, and Justin Bieber. The two partners recently sold a 51 percent stake in the company to HTC for a cool $300 million. Not bad for a gangsta rap artist turned businessman, don’t you think?
As for HTC, they see the deal as a strategic partnership to incorporate Beats technology into their phones by the end of the year. Put simply, the Taiwanese handset maker bets their association with the rap artist’s line of popular headphones will help their phones score a couple coolness points with kids.
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