After more than a year of disappointing sales numbers, BlackBerry maker Research In Motion is considering all its options as it struggles to compete with the iPhone and Android smartphones. Now, a rapper-turned-marketing entrepreneur is offering the company a -- well, let’s say, a unique option. (UVMF photo)

After more than a year of disappointing sales numbers, BlackBerry maker Research In Motion is considering all its options as it struggles to compete with the iPhone and Android smartphones. Now, a rapper-turned-marketing entrepreneur is offering the company a -- well, let’s say, a unique way out.

Nono C. Pearson, rapper handle Big Reality, has offered to buy the company outright, offering RIM shareholders a stock swap that would see them get shares of Pearson’s company, United Vision Marketing Firms (UVMF), ahead of the company’s initial public offering.

It may sound like a joke, but Pearson appears to be entirely sincere about the offer.

“The decision was made to acquire RIM after a strategy session with UVMF's board members and consultants and the announcement by RIM's new CEO of a possible sell of the company,” UVMF said in a press release last week. “The proposed deal is an all stock swap deal that will position RIM shareholders to be in a greater equity position by swapping for UVMF's IPO stock price.”

UVMF explained that the deal “will help the development of UVMF'S $1.6 billion proposed Pearson Education Tablet (PET), take UVMF public and develop a new brand imaging campaign for BlackBerry Products using UVMF's entertainment ties.”

Those entertainment ties have to do with Pearson’s attempt at carving out a unique niche for himself in the marketing world, branding himself as the owner of “corporate hip-hop” -- an attempt to fuse rapping with marketing.

To that end, Pearson’s company has offered one million shares of UVMF to the rapper who writes “the best verse of what the UVMF family calls ‘corporate hip-hop.”

The idea, the company says in a statement, is “about making legitimate corporate moves with a street swag delivery.” The company has reportedly reached out to 50 Cent as a potential contender. No word yet from the rapper as to whether he wants to become the face of “corporate hip hop.”

According to DailyTech.com, among UVMF’s board members is Real Freeway Ricky Ross, a notorious drug dealer who made an estimated $600-million fortune before being busted in a sting in 1996 trying to buy a kilo of cocaine from an undercover federal agent.

Ross “is rumored to have retained much of his fortune,” DailyTech reports.

No word yet on whether RIM will accept the offer, but we’re not holding our breath.

RIM'S BIGGEST SETBACKS OVER THE PAST YEAR

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• Blackberry PlayBook Flops, Prices Slashed

  The PlayBook tablet, which was the BlackBerry maker's answer to the iPad, went on sale in April 2011. Since then, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/03/blackberry-playbook-price-rim_n_1181167.html" target="_hplink">RIM has lost $485 million</a> on unsold units. At the beginning of January, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/03/blackberry-playbook-price-rim_n_1181167.html" target="_hplink">RIM slashed the price of all models</a> of its tablet to $299. The special pricing will last until February 4. PlayBooks, which come in 16, 32 and 64 gigabyte models, typically retail for $499, $599 and $699, respectively, <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57351162-92/blackberry-playbook-price-now-$299-for-all-models/" target="_hplink">according to CNET</a>. In November, RIM temporarily <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/22/blackberry-playbook-price-drop_n_1107941.html" target="_hplink">slashed the price</a> of the 16GB version of the tablet to $199 at certain retail locations.

• Network Outages

  In October, BlackBerry <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/13/blackberry-outage-2011-rim-says-services-returning_n_1008596.html" target="_hplink">suffered an outage that affected</a> many of its then 70-million worldwide users, leaving some of its customers in Asia, Europe, Latin American and Africa without service for as many as three days. Some users in the U.S. were affected, but not for as long a period.

• Drunk Execs Disrupt International Flight

  In December, two RIM executives were fired after a flight they were on was forced to be diverted because the pair's "drunken rowdiness," <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/02/two-men-face-hefty-fine-a_0_n_1125214.html" target="_hplink">the AP reports</a>.

• BlackBerry 10 Platform Delayed

  Research in Motion announced in December 2011 that its highly anticipated BlackBerry 10 platform won't be available until the end of 2012. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/16/blackberry-10-phones-rim_n_1153314.html" target="_hplink">According to the AP</a>, the company claims the holdup is because the chipset needed for the phones running the platform won't be available until the middle of this year.

• Stock Slides In 2011

  In 2011, <a href="http://www.dailyfinance.com/quote/nasdaq/research-in-motion-limited-usa/rimm" target="_hplink">RIM's stock</a> dropped <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/23/rim-ceos-jim-balsillie-mike-lazaridis_n_1222605.html#s629929&title=Lessien" target="_hplink">a massive 75 percent</a>.

• Falling U.S. Market Share

  In less than a year, RIM's share of the U.S. smartphone market <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/23/rim-ceos-jim-balsillie-mike-lazaridis_n_1222605.html#s629929&title=Lessien" target="_hplink">dropped by almost 50 percent</a>, from <a href="http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/3/comScore_Reports_January_2011_U.S._Mobile_Subscriber_Market_Share" target="_hplink">30.4 percent</a> in January 2011 to <a href="http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/12/comScore_Reports_November_2011_U.S._Mobile_Subscriber_Market_Share" target="_hplink">16.6 percent</a> in November 2011. In 2009, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/16/blackberry-10-phones-rim_n_1153314.html" target="_hplink">RIM controlled 44 percent</a> of the US smartphone market. (Pictured above is the HTC Desire HD Android, which runs on Google's much more popular Android platform.)

• Investors Urge Company Sell Itself

  A nearly 75 percent drop in stock price in 2011 did not please investors. At the end of 2011, Jaguar Financial Corp, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/01/03/balsillie-lazaridis-rim-research-in-motion-jaguar-financial_n_1180885.html" target="_hplink">one of the largest investors</a> in RIM, called "for substantial corporate governance change and for a sale of RIM, whether as a whole or as separate parts." Vic Alboini, the chief executive of Jaguar Financial, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16393180" target="_hplink">told the BBC earlier this month</a> that RIM has "lost it." "The party is over, we believe, in terms of trying to design that cool, tech savvy smartphone," he said. "Microsoft has over $50 billion in cash, RIM has $1.5 billion. There is no way they'll be able to compete."

• Exploding BlackBerry

  The family of 11-year-old Kian McCreath of Coventry, U.K., gave RIM some of its worst publicity in 2012, telling the media the boy was burned and left with permanent scarring when his BlackBerry Curve 9320 exploded. Although cell phones that are left to charge too long are known to explode, for RIM the news represented a horrible publicity disaster that came just weeks ahead of the launch of its BlackBerry 10.