According to Business Week, former rap star MC Hammer (real name Stanley Burrell) is hoping to edge out Internet giant YouTube with a new website called DanceJam.com, an online spot for sharing and watching dance videos. The site will reportedly provide dance demonstrations and hold head-to-head competitions between user-submitted dance videos. Hammer is co-founder and chief strategy officer of the new website, which is set to launch in mid-January.

Along with partners Geoffrey Arone, the chief executive, and Anthony Young, the chief technology officer, Hammer has spent months stockpiling video of people dancing in preparation for the launch.

The timing for the dance-based site may be right, considering the ballooning populariy of dance-oriented snap music, Soulja Boy’s
choreography hit “Crank Dat” and shows like “Dancing With The Stars,”
but some say that competing with YouTube may be easier said than done.

“When people are looking for any video, whether it be about
skateboarding, dancing or a science project, they don’t stop to think
about where’s the best place to find it,” said James McQuivey, a media analyst with Forrester Research. “They just start off by going to YouTube.”

Although Hammer went bankrupt in 1996 after becoming a rap
sensation, several entrepreneurial heavyweights co-sign the former
rapper’s business savvy, including Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com, which is worth $7 billion. “We really learned a lot from Hammer,” said Benioff, who enlisted
advice from Hammer when Salesforce.com was just taking off. “He is the
most entrepreneurial individual I have ever met.”

Hammer seems confident in his own abilities as well. “There is no high-tech lingo or business strategy that you can talk
that is above my head,” Hammer said. “I breathe this stuff.”