US rapper Ja Rule is the latest famous name to get in on the much talked-about non-fungible tokens game. The Always On Time singer is currently auctioning off an artwork he commissioned back when he was co-producer of the infamous Fyre Festival.
What is Flipkick?
Ja Rule, whose real name is Jeffrey Atkins, was originally going to sell the oil painting on eBay, according to Insider, but now he's launching a platform called Flipkick – which he's joined as a partner and head of artists and repertoire – that plans to sell both physical and digital art as NFTs.
"If you're old like me, you're used to having tangible things to collect. But you've got to let your mind be open to the new," Ja Rule told The Art Newspaper. "I feel like we can be the Christie's of physical NFTs. We want to involve celebrities and dope influencers. Banksy, if you're reading this, Rule would love to sell you baby!"
Flipkick claims to be "the first company to offer cryptographic authentication of physical works of art sold as and linked to NFTs".
While most NFTs are solely digital, some sold on Flipkick will feature a digital ledger entry for a tangible item. Once a piece is sold at auction, the buyer can then resell it, or redeem the token for the physical artwork.
What is the artwork Ja Rule is selling?
The piece, by US painter Tripp Derrick Barnes, is a 48-inch-by-60-inch portrait of Fyre Media, Inc's corporate logo. It has a black background and a colourful flame, with the word "fyre" beneath it.
"Bold with his trademark flamboyance and vivid colour palette, Barnes' painting once spoke of an endless font of ambition," reads the description on the Flipkick website. "Now it speaks of the fever dreams of a man whose reach exceeded his grasp."
The canvas has been hanging in Ja Rule's New Jersey mansion since the company's offices closed a few years ago.
"I just wanted the bad energy gone," he said in an interview this week.
Bidding for the portrait began on Tuesday and will run for seven days, with a reserve price set at $600,000, which means it can't go for anything less than that.
The buyer can also request for it to be signed by the rapper.
The auction ends on Tuesday at 8pm EDT.
Fyre Festival: the greatest party that never happened
Ja Rule co-produced Fyre Festival in 2017 alongside founder Billy McFarland. It was supposed to be an illustrious event in the Bahamas that instead turned into a disastrous debacle.
In a bid to promote Atkins's Fyre app, which was designed to allow people to book talent more easily, McFarland decided to throw a massive party – which eventually morphed into Fyre Festival.
They promised people who bought tickets a fun time, fine cuisine, famous guests and performers, and luxury dwellings, as high-profile supermodels and influencers promoted the party across social media.
Instead, all festival-goers got was an overcrowded island, leftover hurricane tents and a disappointing cheese sandwich.
Both Netflix and Hulu have aired documentaries about the fallout. Now, it's dubbed "the greatest party that never happened".
What is Iconn?
Atkins is now also promoting Iconn, an app he's launched that sounds very similar to the Fyre app. It's a celebrity booking platform that was developed with the engineering team from Fyre Media.
Fat Joe and Ashanti are among those users can book using the beta version of the website, while the mobile app is still in the works.
Ja Rule has repeatedly insisted that it is different from the original Fyre app.
What is crypto art and NFTs?
NFTs are digital certificates that authenticate ownership through blockchain technology. NFTs can come in the form of drawings, music, video or other digital media, even tweets, memes, online articles or podcasts.
The NFT exists on the blockchain, where it cannot be copied or manipulated.
Since they are verified with a digital signature, they offer the advantage of easier authentication important to the art world. They also enable a digital work to be tagged, in a sense, as an original, which adds value to a medium that can be easily copied and duplicated.
Earlier this month, Everydays: The First 5000 Days, by artist Beeple, made history by becoming the first virtual NFT artwork to to be sold by a major auction house, for a staggering $69.4 million, snowballing from a starting bid of $100.
Christie's reported that 22 million people tuned in "for the final moments of the historic sale".
Six large-scale objects on show
- Concrete wall and windows from the now demolished Robin Hood Gardens housing estate in Poplar
- The 17th Century Agra Colonnade, from the bathhouse of the fort of Agra in India
- A stagecloth for The Ballet Russes that is 10m high – the largest Picasso in the world
- Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1930s Kaufmann Office
- A full-scale Frankfurt Kitchen designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, which transformed kitchen design in the 20th century
- Torrijos Palace dome
Company%20Profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20myZoi%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202021%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Syed%20Ali%2C%20Christian%20Buchholz%2C%20Shanawaz%20Rouf%2C%20Arsalan%20Siddiqui%2C%20Nabid%20Hassan%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20UAE%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20staff%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%2037%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Initial%20undisclosed%20funding%20from%20SC%20Ventures%3B%20second%20round%20of%20funding%20totalling%20%2414%20million%20from%20a%20consortium%20of%20SBI%2C%20a%20Japanese%20VC%20firm%2C%20and%20SC%20Venture%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
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Power: 218hp (Cooper and Aceman), 313hp (Countryman)
Torque: 330Nm (Cooper and Aceman), 494Nm (Countryman)
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Price: From Dh158,000 (Cooper), Dh168,000 (Aceman), Dh190,000 (Countryman)
Volvo ES90 Specs
Engine: Electric single motor (96kW), twin motor (106kW) and twin motor performance (106kW)
Power: 333hp, 449hp, 680hp
Torque: 480Nm, 670Nm, 870Nm
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Price: Exact regional pricing TBA
Quick facts on cancer
- Cancer is the second-leading cause of death worldwide, after cardiovascular diseases
- About one in five men and one in six women will develop cancer in their lifetime
- By 2040, global cancer cases are on track to reach 30 million
- 70 per cent of cancer deaths occur in low and middle-income countries
- This rate is expected to increase to 75 per cent by 2030
- At least one third of common cancers are preventable
- Genetic mutations play a role in 5 per cent to 10 per cent of cancers
- Up to 3.7 million lives could be saved annually by implementing the right health
strategies
- The total annual economic cost of cancer is $1.16 trillion
Results
2.30pm: Expo 2020 Dubai – Conditions (PA) Dh80,000 (Dirt) 1,600m; Winner: Barakka, Ray Dawson (jockey), Ahmad bin Harmash (trainer)
3.05pm: Now Or Never – Maiden (TB) Dh82,500 (Turf) 1,600m; Winner: One Idea, Andrea Atzeni, Doug Watson
3.40pm: This Is Our Time – Handicap (TB) Dh82,500 (D) 1,600m; Winner: Perfect Balance, Tadhg O’Shea, Bhupat Seemar
4.15pm: Visit Expo 2020 – Handicap (TB) Dh87,500 (T) 1,600m; Winner: Kaheall, Richard Mullen, Salem bin Ghadayer
4.50pm: The World In One Place – Handicap (TB) Dh95,000 (T) 1.900m; Winner: Castlebar, Adrie de Vries, Helal Al Alawi
5.25pm: Vision – Handicap (TB) Dh95,000 (D) 1,200m; Winner: Shanty Star, Richard Mullen, Rashed Bouresly
6pm: Al Wasl Plaza – Handicap (TB) Dh95,000 (T) 1,200m; Winner: Jadwal, Dane O’Neill, Doug Watson
Indian origin executives leading top technology firms
Sundar Pichai
Chief executive, Google and Alphabet
Satya Nadella
Chief executive, Microsoft
Ajaypal Singh Banga
President and chief executive, Mastercard
Shantanu Narayen
Chief executive, chairman, and president, Adobe
Indra Nooyi
Board of directors, Amazon and former chief executive, PepsiCo
Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
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Company profile
Name: Tharb
Started: December 2016
Founder: Eisa Alsubousi
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: Luxury leather goods
Initial investment: Dh150,000 from personal savings
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Alaves 1 (Perez 65' pen)
Real Madrid 2 (Ramos 52', Carvajal 69')
The Bio
Hometown: Bogota, Colombia
Favourite place to relax in UAE: the desert around Al Mleiha in Sharjah or the eastern mangroves in Abu Dhabi
The one book everyone should read: 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It will make your mind fly
Favourite documentary: Chasing Coral by Jeff Orlowski. It's a good reality check about one of the most valued ecosystems for humanity
UAE SQUAD
Ali Khaseif, Mohammed Al Shamsi, Fahad Al Dhanhani, Khalid Essa, Bandar Al Ahbabi, Salem Rashid, Shaheen Abdulrahman, Khalifa Al Hammadi, Mohammed Al Attas, Walid Abbas, Hassan Al Mahrami, Mahmoud Khamis, Alhassan Saleh, Ali Salmeen, Yahia Nader, Abdullah Ramadan, Majed Hassan, Abdullah Al Naqbi, Fabio De Lima, Khalil Al Hammadi, Khalfan Mubarak, Tahnoun Al Zaabi, Muhammed Jumah, Yahya Al Ghassani, Caio Canedo, Ali Mabkhout, Sebastian Tagliabue, Zayed Al Ameri
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Liverpool 2 (Van Dijk 18', 24')
Brighton 1 (Dunk 79')
Red card: Alisson (Liverpool)
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German intelligence warnings
- 2002: "Hezbollah supporters feared becoming a target of security services because of the effects of [9/11] ... discussions on Hezbollah policy moved from mosques into smaller circles in private homes." Supporters in Germany: 800
- 2013: "Financial and logistical support from Germany for Hezbollah in Lebanon supports the armed struggle against Israel ... Hezbollah supporters in Germany hold back from actions that would gain publicity." Supporters in Germany: 950
- 2023: "It must be reckoned with that Hezbollah will continue to plan terrorist actions outside the Middle East against Israel or Israeli interests." Supporters in Germany: 1,250
Source: Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
Results
5pm: Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (Turf) 1,600m; Winner: Nadhra, Fabrice Veron (jockey), Eric Lemartinel (trainer)
5.30pm: Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,400m; Winner: AF Dars, Tadhg O’Shea, Ernst Oertel
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7pm: Wathba Stallions Cup Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 (T) 2,200m; Winner: M’Y Yaromoon, Khalifa Al Neyadi, Jesus Rosales
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