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Benzinga
Benzinga
Business
Chris Katje

Grammy Award Winning Musician Timbaland Debuts Congo, A Bored Ape Yacht Club Which Stars In His New Music Video

Grammy Award-winning producer and musician Timbaland is one of the many celebrities and musicians who own non-fungible tokens. Timbaland is also the owner of a Bored Ape Yacht Club, one of the most famous and valuable NFT collections. Here’s a look at what Timbaland is up to with his Bored Ape.

What Happened: Timbaland introduced Congo, his musical NFT alter ego, to the world this week. Also known as Bored Ape #590, Congo was featured in the new Timbaland music video for the song “Has a Meaning.”

“Creativity means starting. Just going forward. This video wouldn’t exist if we believed in limitations,” Timbaland said.

Timbaland wrote and recorded the song and later partnered with Unreal Engine to bring his music video featuring a Bored Ape to life. Unreal Engine is owned by Epic Games, a video game company that counts Tencent Holdings (OTC:TCEHY) and Sony Group Corp (NYSE:SONY) as its investors.

Timbaland wore sensors and cameras to capture his likeness and facial expressions to create realistic CGI characters for the video.

The music video features billboards in the background that show off logos for Bored Ape Yacht Club, MoonPay and BeatClub, a company founded by Timbaland. Around the one-minute mark, a billboard shows Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) co-founder Bill Gates discussing cryptocurrency and NFTs when he famously said NFTs were “100% based on greater fool theory.”

The music video also shows Otherdeed #590 at the end, referencing the Otherside land deed NFT that Bored Ape Yacht Club holders were able to claim.

The song can be downloaded as an MP3 via AirDrop. A limited edition of 100 NFTs related to the video are on sale for 0.4 Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) each.

Bored Ape #590 features the following traits, with their percentage of Apes having the trait:

  • Gray Background: 5% of Apes
  • Scumbag Eyes: 1%
  • Brown Fur: 6%
  • Bored Mouth: 9%
  • Hip Hop Clothes: 0.5%

Timbaland purchased the Bored Ape in September 2021 for 74.69 ETH, or over $300,000 at the time.

Related Link: Celebrities That Own Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs 

Why It’s Important: The music video from Timbaland comes as another music video featuring two Bored Apes is rocketing up the view count and trending list on YouTube, a unit of Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL).

Snoop Dogg and Eminem teamed up for the song “From The D 2 The LBC,” which features their respectively owned Bored Apes in the video. The music video had over 18 million views in its first seven days.

Timbaland was one of multiple performers at Ape Fest, an exclusive annual event for Bored Ape and Mutant Ape holders. Timbaland debuted his video at the event. The video from Snoop Dogg and Eminem also made its debut at Ape Fest several days later.

“Congo’s ‘Has A Meaning’ serves as proof of the creative potential of NFTs for both collectors and creators alike,” the press release reads.

Celebrities who own Bored Apes have begun turning to creating a brand around the NFT and feature them in music videos, a trend worth following, with many musicians owning NFTs from the popular NFT collection.

Price Action: Bored Ape Yacht Club has a floor price of 90.5 ETH, or around $102,260 at the time of writing.

Photo: Courtesy of opensea.com

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