Pharrell Williams becomes the Chief Brand Officer for Doodles,
a viral video and connected Bored Apes spin-off starts a larger discussion on the internet,
while Eminem's performance at ApeFest in New York City had the crowd going bananas.
My name is Deezy.
This is your Friday NFT news wrap-up.
Let's get it!
Proud owner of 13 Grammys and music superstar Pharrell Williams
announced on Wednesday at NFT.NYC that he's teamed up with a blue chip project Doodles
as their Chief Brand Ambassador and is also a member of the Doodles board.
Cryptobriefing.com reports that in a pre-recorded video message at the event, Pharrel stated,
"When the Doodles team presented its vision for business, I was immediately all-in."
This is without a doubt very bullish news for Doodles and their community,
given what Pharrell will bring to the table,
not to mention the spike in activity the project has already seen over the past seven days,
with the floor well above 14 Ethereum.
The music icon will not only help direct Doodles' approach to reaching new demographics
through an array of different artistic mediums,
but Pharrel will also be an executive producer on Doodles-themed music album
that will be released by Columbia Records.
The album will be called Doodles Record: Volume 1.
And considering it says "Volume 1" in the name,
that implies that Pharrell and Doodles will work hand in hand together
for many albums and years to come.
Very curious to see what they come up with in the studio.
I'll be getting that one.
Considering how touchy the next story is,
know that we tried our very best to approach this from a non biased standpoint
and to just deliver the facts.
Internet artist Ryder Ripps created a recontextualized version of the Bored Ape Yacht Club
that looks almost identical to the original release,
except Ryder removed certain imagery in his version that he perceives to be racist and offensive.
The RR/BAYC project has already been removed from OpenSea for a violation of trademark,
but it is still available in X2Y2 with the floor of 0.33 ETH.
In the RR/BAYC bio, there's a link to gordongoner.com,
which is the name of one of the original members of the Bored Ape founders,
but Ryder chose this name to be the name of the website
because he believes it to be an offensive anagram.
The website itself, created months ago, is an explanation on why
the Yacht Club uses racist esoteric imagery embedded with neo-Nazi dog whistles
as a nod to the alt-right and 4chan culture.
Ryder's reimagination of the Apes picked up serious steam four days ago
when a popular YouTube creator Fillion released an hour-long video titled
Bored Ape Nazi Club.
Fillion's video backs Ryder Ripps' claims
and is a deep dive on exploration of the background of the Yacht Club creators---
why all the imagery is on purpose,
why the celebrities involved committed fraud,
and why you should burn your Bored Ape and buy Ryder's version instead.
The Jewish, Turkish, Pakistani and Cuban founders
have since came out and called those claims ridiculous.
Is the Bored Ape Yacht Club ironically the biggest troll in internet history?
Or is Ryder Ripps trying to gain clout off another copycat project
by repackaging it in a controversy?
If you don't know, Ryder Ripps already reimagined the CryptoPunks calling them CryptoPhunks,
and they face left instead of right.
Political pun intended.
While the internet exploded this week
arguing over who is right or wrong about the esoteric imagery,
or if the whole thing was a publicity stunt,
ApeFest raged on for four days at Pier 17 in New York City.
This exciting event was sponsored by Polygon.
It was exclusive for the Bored Ape and the Mutant Ape holders and their plus one.
The festival featured artists such as Lil Baby, Future and The Roots.
On the original flyer,
the performer for the Thursday night performance was blacked out.
After many rumors and speculation on who it could be,
it was none other than Snoop Dogg and the Rap God himself, Eminem.
They performed a new single together titled From The D 2 The LBC
featuring Bored Apes on the artwork.
And with Snoop and Slim Shady involved heavily in the NFT culture,
it's hard for me to believe that they're on the outside of an inside joke.
And if that is the case,
I can't wait to hear Eminem's diss track to Ryder Ripps.
That's all I got.
Be blessed.
Deezy out.