Kanye West: The Next Steve Jobs?

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Reuters

World, you can finally breathe easy: We’ve found our next Steve Jobs. In a series of tweets posted earlier this week, Kanye West announced that he was launching a company to “make products and experiences that people want and can afford,” because “we need to pick up where Steve Jobs left off.”

According to postings from West’s Twitter account, he’s been inspired not only by Jobs’ example, but also by current events and the need for change: “We need to take what Michael Jackson felt and McQueen and Steve Jobs and we need [to] make things better… The adrenaline is running… I don’t know if I can even get to sleep now… From Wall Street to the London riots to Chicago murders… I sit everyday and ask what can I do to make a difference… There are so many broken systems from the economy to school systems [to] jail systems… we need experts for this… We need scientist[s] and top world designers to directly affect governments…”

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West’s new company, DONDA (named for West’s deceased mother), will apparently have “over 22 divisions with a goal to make products and experiences that people want and can afford,” according to the rapper, adding that he wants “to put creatives in a room together with like minds that are all waaaay doper than me… We want to help simplify and aesthetically improve everything we see hear, touch, taste and feel… To dream of, create, advertise and produce products driven equally by emotional want and utilitarian need.. To marry our wants and needs.”

If this all sounds like the exciting late-night ramblings of a musician with a lot of money and success behind him rather than a successful business plan to you, then you’re not alone – especially considering the “over 22 divisions” part. West claimed at one point to be “assembling a team of architects, graphic designers, directors musicians, producers, AnRs, writers, publicist, social media experts, app guys, managers, car designers, clothing designers, DJs, video game designers, publishers, tech guys, lawyers, bankers, nutritionist, doctors, scientist [and] teachers” for the company, which hardly sounds like the most organized effort.

And yet… I can’t be alone in hoping that he somehow makes this whole thing work. There’s something oddly attractive about the thinking behind DONDA, no matter how naive, after all. Maybe West won’t manage to pick up where Steve Jobs left off, but it’s hard to really fault him that much for wanting to try.

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Graeme McMillan is a reporter at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @Graemem or on Facebook at Facebook/Graeme.McMillan. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.