Rapper Chamillionaire wants to get 'wealthy' so he founded a startup that sounds a bit like Twitter

Hakeem Seriki, better known by his stage name Chamillionare has raised $1.5 million for a startup called  X Empire according to CBinsights. He's seeking $3 million total.

What's the startup about? The only hint was found in the company's trademark filing, which described the itself as providing "Downloadable software applications for streaming communications with entertainers, politicians, and celebrities." Sounds like Twitter with more live streaming baked in.

The trademark came to light in late February, but Seriki finally admitted to owning a startup today on Twitter. 

The news may seem out of the blue, but in reality Seriki has been planning to get into the tech industry for over a year. Speaking to Vice last year, the rapper lamented the lack of wealthy people he saw during his time in the music industry:

I got into the tech industry, I see wealthy every day. The Snapchat CEO is 24 years old and a billionaire. How many billionaires do I have to walk around the music industry to find? I'm in Silicon Valley, I'm in L.A., I'm in Santa Monica, and I'm seeing billionaires all over the place. And they're young. That's not in the music industry.

Seriki isn't a newcomer to startups or business - a little more than a year ago, he became entrepreneur-in-residence at LA's Upfront Ventures, and he was an investor in a car dealership in 2003. But now he's finally admitting that he's got his own startup.