Taking Names

Battle of the brands

Would you spend $3,500 on a 50 Cent watch? The rapper is among an increasingly upscale trend of hip-hop branding, according to Billboard magazine.

The Game, another rapper, has partnered with 310 Motoring and Skechers to create a shoe line. Nelly has a premium light energy drink, PJ Tight.

This is in addition to already established — and sometimes struggling — clothing lines from rappers Jay-Z, Eminem and Sean “P. Diddy” Combs.

Are celebrity endorsements becoming too much of a good thing?

“There are a lot of people who believe that celebrity is enough of an added value to any product to make it successful,” Robert Passikoff, founder and president of Brand Keys, a brand and customer loyalty consulting company in New York, told Billboard.

“But it’s usually not.”

From clerk to Caine

A former bookstore clerk from Nigeria won the 2005 Caine Prize for African Writing with a short story exploring how families respond to the dislocation of exile, AP reports.

S.A. Afolabi was the sixth winner of the $15,000 prize, sometimes dubbed the “African Booker” because of its link to the late Man Booker Prize Chairman Sir Michael Caine (a British businessman, not the actor).

Mr. Afolabi, born in Nigeria, grew up in Congo, Canada, Indonesia and elsewhere and has lived in London for the past decade. During a reading (before being named the Caine winner at a ceremony Monday in Oxford) he said he imagined that many of his readers were people like himself, as easily from Central Europe or Latin America as from Africa — wanderers in the modern world.

“Life is on the move all the time, and I think people are looking for stories that express that,” he said.

Pink profits

Pink Floyd vowed to donate all profits made from its greatest-hits album to charity after record sales soared following the group’s performance at Live 8.

The legendary British band, which hadn’t played together for 20 years, saw sales of “Echoes” increase by 1,300 percent in London alone.

Guitarist David Gilmour said the money should be used to “save lives.”

“Though the main objective has been to raise consciousness [of the plight of Africa] and put pressure on the G-8 leaders, I will not profit from the concert,” he told Reuters News Agency.

Long, winding road

It has been 66 years since Mickey Carroll’s only movie role, but he’s still being celebrated for it. Mr. Carroll is one of a few surviving Munchkins from MGM’s 1939 classic “The Wizard of Oz.”

His character led the Munchkin parade and advised Dorothy, “Follow the Yellow Brick Road.”

On Saturday, friends and fans gathered in a park to celebrate his 86th birthday, according to AP. (His actual birthday is July 8.)

When “Oz” appeared on television in the 1960s, he found a new career at charitable events, retail events and Oz-related events.

“It’s not me; it’s the movie,” Mr. Carroll said. “When they see me, they think of their childhood, and it makes them smile.”

Compiled by Scott Galupo from Web and wire reports.