Rap star Kanye West follows one Coventry man on Twitter

[dutchman]

US rapper Kanye West has made a Coventry man an online star by following him on Twitter.

West, 33, made Stephen Holmes the first - and so far only - person he is following on the social networking site after joining last week.

Mr Holmes tweeted West to thank the rapper for following him. West replied: "You are the chosen one dun dun dun."

Since the hip hop star's interest, Mr Holmes's followers on the site have increased from 60 to about 1,500.

'Tweet strong'

The Coventry man confessed: "I feel pressure with my tweets now."

However, West advised him: "Tweet strong young man tweet strong!!!"

Since becoming an online sensation, Mr Holmes's tweets have included: "If abuse is love then I've never felt more loved" and "feeling hungover and I wasn't even drunk last night".

In March, US chat show host Conan O'Brien decided to follow just one person on Twitter, 19-year-old student Sarah Killen.

In an interview with the New York magazine, she described how she was deluged with thousands of messages in the hours after O'Brien chose to follow her.

West, who has a new album coming out, has amassed more than 380,000 Twitter followers in less than a week.