14/07/2021 NFTs In Music: Watch The Most Recent Pro>Sessions Installment To Learn About How You Can Use Your Art To Digitally Capitalize
The Recording Academy's Pro>Sessions takes a deep dive into the impact of NFTs on the music industry and how independent creators can leverage this technology to generate revenue in its latest installment
GRAMMYS
JUL 12, 2021 - 4:05 PM
Last week, the Recording Academy shared its sixth installment of Pro>Sessions, a professional development series that focuses on driving revenue in today's digital economy. The episode explored NFTs, arguably the most talked-about digital trend on the market right now, and what opportunities for profit exist in the music landscape. What's an NFT? NFT stands for non-fungible token and these tokens are unique, one-of-a-kind digital files of items like drawings and music. The bulk of NFTs are part of the cryptocurrency Ethereum blockchain, and musicians such as 3LAU and Grimes are raking in hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars from the tokenized release of some of their original creations.
The Recording Academy's Chief Marketing and Innovation Officer Lisa Farris sat down with musician and producer André Anjos, better known as RAC, and recording artist Ryan Paul, aka Wax//Wane, to discuss their experience and current involvement in the digital movement.
During their conversation, Paul noted his interest in getting in on the trend: "The thing that really caught my excitement with NFTs wasn’t just tokenizing things like music, it was trying to capture that feeling of first opening a pack of magic cards when I was a kid, that thing of trying to collect all of these things and providing a prize for those who jumped in on this journey with us."
NFTs are certainly providing a new avenue for fans to financially support the artists they love, and in turn, receive a digitized rarity. It has also created an unconventional revenue pipeline for musicians. The tricky part is pricing and connecting with potential buyers, and that’s where marketplaces like OneOf and Nifty Gateway have stepped in.
"Definitely lean into the platforms as a resource for pricing, they know the market pretty well and they will be able to at least give you an estimate or an approximation," Anjos said. "There is a lot of work going into working with collectors. It is really important to establish relationships with your collectors and foster that and they'll give you feedback on pricing too. Get a lot of feedback."
During the second half of the program, Farris continued this compelling discussion from the business perspective with Adam Fell of Quincy Jones Productions, NFT attorney Jacob Martin, and OneOf exec, Joshua James. OneOf
is a green NFT platform built specifically for the music vertical.
James shared his passion for the new revenue source: "We are excited that if you are a new artist, and you want to sell $1 NFTs to your first 1,000 fans on Instagram, you can do that. And now three years later when you win a GRAMMY, that $1 NFT is essentially the rookie card and since we can protect the resale royalty, as that NFT trades in value over time, the artist essentially is making money at every transaction along the way."
Check out the full program above to learn more about the role of publishing in NFTs, smart contracts, the future of blockchains, resale values and royalty protections, and the potential pitfalls of selling music via NFTs.
Arts
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Interesting NFTs
Stay Free (Edward Snowden, 2021)
This unique, signed work combines the entirety of a landmark court decision ruling the National Security Agency's mass surveillance violated the law, with the iconic portrait of the whistleblower by Platon (used with permission). It is the only known NFT produced by Snowden. Produced using open source software. This auction is on behalf of Freedom of the Press Foundation. https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/appeals-court-strikes-down-nsa-phone-spying-program-aclu-lawsuit
Alex in Wonderland
A figure, Alex, stands mostly naked in the midst of a physical and psychological maelstrom. He is clad only in nostalgic 80’s era socks, on a tenuous island between active waters and a variety of shark denizens. Sharks on the right side of the image are all beached, including a shark with a quartz crystal snout, an orange shark wrapped in a life buoy, and a shark further in the distance wearing an 80’s style shirt with the number “88”. On the left side is the largest shark, wearing bright glossy red lipstick and brandishing prominent teeth with braces. She is cordoned off from the figure by a roped float divider, and within her thought bubble is a warning symbol.
Behind the figure, hovering in the air, are Grey aliens emerging from the distance, out of a series of elliptical UFO shaped interdimensional membranes. The Greys take on the visual form of spermazoa ostensibly impregnating the interdimensional thresholds. As is typical, these Greys inhabit a zone just behind the unconscious topology of Alex’s dissociative mind.
Though Alex’s bottom half is representative, his top half mutates into a psychological cornucopia. In a manner akin to “Auto-Erotic Sphinx”, a predecessor work, the figure has self suctioned—an act of sensual infatuation, enjoyment, and exploration.
Upward exists the figure’s primary conscious eye, adorned with a revolutionary beret emblazoned with a Bitcoin badge. The figure’s summit features the nose of a fighter jet facing off against video game Bullet Bills, one of whom is marked by a communist North Korean star. A cropped section of a UFO observes the contest.
Alex’s mind branches both left and right. To the left is more singular embodied consciousness, manifesting two eyes and a Ganesh trunk grasping crayons. The right branch dissociates upward diagonally, emerging into an array of eyes, faces, teeth, tail, a unicorn horn, and much more—all of which participate in expressing his unconscious being; a democracy of psychic factions representing thought impressions and associations. All illumination and darkness– fernal, infernal, high consciousness and corporeal underbelly–reside in this realm.
In the distance are relatively languid, light clouds, and against the firmament hovers a colossal distant eye peering over the scene and far beyond.
This painting possesses underlying genetic traits with previous works such as “Auto-Erotic Sphinx with Toys”, “Dionysus”, and “Fuku-Shiva”. The work serves also as a nod to an earlier period of art inspiration during late teens and early twenties— born out of the nakedness, vulnerability, curiosity, and wonder inherent to coming of age and all subsequent psychedelic revelation.
Fisherman seated on a rock
Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849)
Fisherman seated on a rock
mid-1820s(?) - Japan
Gatabe
Moonfae are a race of outlandish creatures in the world of The Beacon. Settlers named them so because of their otherworldy nature and their apparent relation to the moon.
The dirty cape
Personal project