… The point was clear from the start. When you first pop the jar and take a bite, it should taste like "a day-old sauce." (omitted) This is not the flavor of a sauce an Italian grandmother next door simmered all day with care.
This is not an excerpt from a one-star review by a coldhearted food critic in a gourmet guide magazine. It is, without a doubt, a product promo line posted by a spaghetti sauce developer on its own website. Is it noise marketing. In fact, this sauce is a product released in 2023 by "Mom's Spaghetti," run by Eminem, the legendary American rapper.
Why does a successful rapper make and sell spaghetti sauce. Why does that sauce aspire to B-grade or C-grade rather than gastronomy or Culinary Class Wars. The main ingredient of Mom's Spaghetti, launched in 2021, is not Sicilian tomatoes. It is none other than a rapper's tumultuous life story. The very reason that sauce, which aims for second-rate food, sold out within hours of release is, paradoxically, that.
Eminem grew up in the slums of Detroit, Michigan. That story was distilled into the autobiographical film 8 Mile, which he starred in, and its theme song Lose Yourself. Eminem was discriminated against in the hip-hop scene led by Black artists because he was white. On top of that, he was dirt poor. Winning rap battles at downtown clubs became not a hobby but a desperate means of livelihood. That is why the opening of Lose Yourself is a vivid account of a rookie rapper heading onstage, hyper-tense under the weight of success.
"His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy/ There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti…"
Lose Yourself, the first rap song in Academy Awards history to seize best original song, is thus also the theme of Eminem's life. In the end, having achieved a rags-to-riches success, Eminem opened a Mom's Spaghetti shop downtown in his hometown of Detroit in 2021.
X Japan leader Yoshiki moves into apparel
In the previous piece, we looked at singers who became billionaires. From the "double-billionaire couple" Jay-Z and Beyoncé to Bruce Springsteen, quite a few raked in astronomical revenue through concerts, sales of music-related merchandise, and rights deals. But many have also succeeded by fully leveraging their image and story to move into non-music businesses.
The rock band Kiss, which led the "goods" industry in the music scene of the 1970s, is a case of commodifying image and story. Among the countless items they sold, from T-shirts to lunch boxes, was, unexpectedly, coffee. In 2006, they opened a coffee shop, Kiss Coffeehouse, in Southern California. Their motto was that "before our explosive arrival, there was no coffee with attitude in the coffee market yet." The menu names are as provocative as Kiss's grotesque makeup and stage sets. In addition to a range of coffees with diverse profiles—Kiss Frozen Rockuccino, Demon Dark Roast, Iced Rockiato, Rocket Ride Espresso—they even prepared bites like Cinnamon Rollover, Growler, and Deep Fried Twinkies. For decaffeinated coffee, instead of "Decaf," they chose a highly musical naming: "Unplugged." The interior and exterior were filled with giant boot sculptures symbolizing Kiss, logos, band photos, and rare collectibles.
Nearby in Japan is Yoshiki, the leader and drummer of the rock band X Japan. Even within X Japan, known for bizarre makeup and bombastic sound, Yoshiki was the core of strangeness and mystique. His very profile, which listed "X" for gender, nationality, and blood type, was grotesque. A few years ago, I met Yoshiki in the United States for an interview. I still can't forget the inscrutable smile with which Yoshiki said, "I want to be judged only by my music, not by affiliation or bloodline or the like."
In 2011, Yoshiki jumped into the apparel business. The brand name is Yoshikimono. For Yoshiki, who has worked as an ambiguously gendered model through many album covers and photo shoots, could there be a business item more "made for each other." Moreover, X Japan was famous for makeup and fashion that seemed to twist traditional kabuki into something futuristic (more precisely, dystopian). Yoshikimono advanced by leaps and bounds. Starting on the runway of Tokyo Girls Collection, it moved on to Tokyo Fashion Week, and in 2020 it was invited to the kimono special exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. It proudly took a place in the kimono retrospective at the Tokyo National Museum, and expanded collaborators from the global anime Attack on Titan to works by Stan Lee, the "father of Marvel."
Business items and music create synergy… fan devotion solidifies
The examples of Eminem, Kiss, and Yoshiki show that jumping into beauty like Beyoncé, Rihanna, or Selena Gomez, or into alcohol like Jay-Z or John Legend, is not the only path. The businesses of Eminem, Kiss, and Yoshiki were not as "blockbuster" as those. From the outset, their business items had limits in mass-market scalability or sales. But such ventures create future value that cannot be tallied by short-term wins and losses. They generate effects that are hard to measure by immediate annual sales, while creating synergy with the life stories of the musicians. They boost the loyalty of fandom and solidify a unique image.
Artists, what will you sell in the future. First, build your image and story. Then, conceive and launch items based on that image and story. It is fine even if you do not score a big success. If you can create intangible value and long-term synergy, nothing could be better.