Award-winning rapper Eminem has joined the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), purchasing one of the non-fungible token (NFT) apes Thursday on the OpenSea platform for 123.45 ether, nearly $462,000.
- Eminem quickly made the ape, who wears a brown military-style hat, hip hop clothing and dazed expression, his Twitter profile picture.
- The Detroit native has acquired about 20 NFTs on OpenSea under the name Shady_Holdings. Eminem, whom Rolling Stone Magazine named one of the 100 Greatest Artists of All-time, won the 2002 Oscar for Best Original Song, and has garnered 15 Grammy music awards in a career dating to the 1980s.
- In a tweet, BAYC member GeeGazza, who sold the ape, thanked the entertainer for purchasing the NFT. “I’m living in a simulation,” he wrote, adding: “Madness. Let me write a lyric in your next single.” GeeGazza had been hoping for months that the entertainer would buy the ape.
I’m living in a simulation.
Thank you @Eminem for buying my ape and joining the club!
Madness. Let me write a lyric in your next single 🤣 pic.twitter.com/myGNRmMLeD
— GeeGazza (@Gee__Gazza) December 31, 2021
- Georgio Constantinou, artist manager of Web 3 digital agency Six tweeted that the firm had helped Eminem buy “the EminApe.”
- Eminem’s interest in NFTs is not his first brush with crypto. In 2018, bitcoin is mentioned on “Not Alike,” one of the tracks on his album “Kamikaze.”
- BAYC has been among the biggest sellers on OpenSea, helping to drive its most recent $10 billion valuation.