Since the Fyre Festival disaster, Ja Rule has had a hard time trying to convince people that his newer venture, ICONN, is different from the Fyre Festival app, despite the two being very similar.
Both initially involved booking celebrities. Fyre eventually evolved into a festival, but ICONN is probably what Fyre should have been.
TRAILER FOR THE FYRE FESTIVAL
He sat down for an interview with HipHopDX to explain the difference:
“I’m not recreating the wheel, man. I’m creating it for the culture. That’s the f*cking difference. It’s other live platforms. It’s other platforms that let you monetize your content, but it ain’t ICONN, trust what the f*ck I’m telling you,” he shared.
“ICE — That’s the parent company and what we do is, we’re here to be the most innovative, creative entertaining company out there,” he said when asked why he did not change the name after the Fyre Fest flopped. “What ICONN does is special for me because it kind of brings everything full circle. It’s like giving us back our power. When I say ‘us’, I’m speaking of my artists’ power. My friends there. Giving us back out power in a lot of ways. Allowing us to monetize our brand, monetize our content where these other platforms don’t do it.”
He continued: “[Imagine] Cardi B and Offset having their muthaf*ckin Christmas party! Everybody going to be there! They’re charging a dollar for you to get in. You don’t know this. Peep this — they don’t announce that they’re charging for it. You’re scrolling through your feed and you see the lock on the picture that says, ‘Cardi and Offset’s Christmas Bash!’ That sets off your f*cking curiosity antenna! Why is it locked?!? What do you mean I can’t see this? How much is it? You hit it. To unlock this Live, it’s a dollar. Man, f*ck it! I got a dollar. What y’all doing? Now, do you see the thought process behind it?”