(FORTUNE Magazine) – They make a rather unlikely team. Hakeem "the Dream" Olajuwon, known for being gracious and outgoing, is a 7-foot basketball star for the NBA champion Houston Rockets. Mars Inc. is a notoriously secretive firm. What they have in common: rice. Mars owns the Uncle Ben's brand, as well as others, in addition to its candy line. And Hakeem (he's got a one-name-only kind of celebrity) has signed a promotional rights deal with Mars, and as part of it will have his own brand in the Uncle Ben's family, Hakeem's Dream Rice.

Mars will use Hakeem's Dream Rice to gain a toehold in regions like the Middle East and Africa. The company already has plenty of experience in brand expansion to third world countries, but it has done so in its own quiet way. Nevertheless, Uncle Ben's has barely cracked Africa, so the company is making a big move with the Nigerian-born Hakeem, who serves as the NBA's international ambassador.

The gregarious Hakeem says of his mostly silent partners, "They're topflight people. Working with them is a pleasure." Mars, predictably, is a bit less forthcoming. Says James Broadley, business development director for Uncle Ben's: "We don't normally go out and sign up superstars like this. We're taking it slowly."

Unlike other superstars, Hakeem tries to promote affordable products, such as the $35 Spalding sneakers he endorses. In fact, Hakeem's Dream Rice will be sold inexpensively, mostly through wholesalers, in hefty ten-kilo as well as 45- and 50-kilo sacks.

With his native Nigeria now an international outcast as a result of its atrocious human rights record, a more likely first market is Saudi Arabia, where Hakeem, a Muslim, is a hero, having made pilgrimages to Mecca. But Hakeem is also black and has teamed up with a brand whose logo depicts a rather deferential-looking black man in a bow tie, which has drawn criticism from some African Americans. That logo won't appear on the packaging for Hakeem's Dream Rice. Hakeem, meanwhile, dispatches the matter with the same deftness he brings to pulling down a rebound. Says he: "I don't deal with racial issues. I'm a universal person, and I have an international outlook."

--Justin Martin