According to reports, music moguls Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine’s headphones empire has only grown stronger thanks to a significant new business partner.
Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre have found the deep-pocketed investor they were seeking for Beats Electronics. Carlyle Group, a DC-based private-equity firm, is investing $500 million for a minority stake in the company, The Wall Street Journal reports, The new investment values beats at more than $1 billion, significantly north of the roughly $600 million valuation put on the company by an investment from HTC two years ago. Carlyle will become a shareholder and is expected to take two of the six seats on Beats’ board. (HITS Daily Double)
The Interscope Records CEO has already confirmed the power move and noted what it meant for Beats’ future.
HTC said today it has agreed to sell back its remaining stake in Beats for $265 million; it paid around $300 million for a majority stake in 2011. Iovine told the paper that the latest transactions reflect the company’s “significant growth prospects,” while Carlyle’s Sandra Horbach said her firm is “confident that Beats will continue to drive innovation and growth in the premium audio accessory market.” (HITS Daily Double)
Dre’s Beats company helped land him a top three spot on Forbes’ “World’s Highest Paid Hip Hop Artists” list behind Diddy and Jay Z this week.
Hip-hop’s net worth king claims his first annual earnings crown thanks mostly to the success of Ciroc vodka. Other ingredients in his cash cocktail: record label Bad Boy, clothing line Sean John and, soon, cable channel Revolt. Lost his hyphen but gained double-digit millions from lucrative live shows, Armand de Brignac champagne, D’Ussé cognac, Roc Nation label/management firm and other ventures. Last year’s Cash King slips two spots, no longer boosted by a nine-figure payout for selling part of Beats by Dr. Dre in 2011. But he’s still cashing in on the ubiquitous headphones, expanding the company he founded with Interscope chief Jimmy Iovine to include a long-awaited streaming music service. (Forbes)
So the question that you’re probably wondering is, removing their endorsements on what basis? The petition on Teyana says that the Harlem singer was mocking domestic abuse victims and was sending abusive tweets to Rihanna.
The petition reads:
Miss Taylor first (before the image above) started sending abusive and offensive tweets/retweets to Rihanna for over a period of 8 hours. This is not about RIHANNA, this is about all the ABUSED WOMEN of the world being MOCKED! IT IS A SHAME that ADIDAS seems to be endorsing @TEYANATAYLOR!
We demand that you do the right thing and terminate her contract and send a strong message to your consumers! Letting one of your sponsors mock a domestic violence victim discourages your female customers from speaking out against their abusers!!!
Meanwhile, Rihanna’s petition accuses the 25-year-old singer of cyber bullying Teyana. It states:
Rihanna has many young fans that look up to her and bullying is a HUGE problem that we are facing with the youth today. She is known for constantly bullying and picking fights with people over the internet and this is a problem that has been going on for a while now. By consistently attacking people online about their looks and reminding them how they are beneath her, she is using her platform in a very negative light and does not provide a positive image for MAC cosmetics or any of the other companies that she endorses. She is a poor role model and promotes habitual drug use. Rihanna openly smokes marijuana and no doubt has encouraged her fans to do so as well.
Due to the behavior that Rihanna is exhibiting, her fans and followers have made death threats and are also exhibiting bullying behavior. This is important b/c Rihanna continues to lead the young women of America down a dark path. She continues to demonstrate destructive behavior to the young girls of this great United States of America by using her huge platform for negativity as opposed to promoting female empowerment and uplifting our young ladies. Because she has such a huge influence over so many, as a result of her bullying and verbal abuse it has encouraged her followers to do so as well. There have been many death threats from people that are a part of her social media gang that she refers to as “The Rihanna Navy”. At a simple request from her, they will pounce on anyone that Rihanna wants to bring her wrath down upon. She is definitely a cyber-bully as evidenced by her Twitter attacks on Ciara, Karruche Tran and Teyana Taylor, just to name a few.
These attacks can do harm to a person’s self-esteem and can lead to things such as depression and suicide which happens to be an ongoing epidemic in our country amongst teenagers, especially young girls. As someone who knows a person who took their life due to bullying, this not only destroys the life of the person who killed themself, it also changes the lives of the family of the person doing the bullying. Continuously creating a negative cycle that will repeat itself.
The effects of cyber-bullying will stunt the growth of our beautiful nation by weakening the psyche of the women of tomorrow who will lead us into the next century. Is this someone who you want representing your brand? It’s time that Rihanna learns that bullying is UNACCEPTABLE and will not be tolerated!
