New technology opens new opportunities. When Christie’s sales digital artwork for $69 million, what does it mean for the music industry? Crook has been thinking about it for a while now.
Since non-fungible tokens (NFT) became the widely recognised way to establish the authenticity of an object, physical or digital likewise, they can provide artists with new means to claim ownership of their art and reshape the art-market. NFTs exist on similar blockchain technology to bitcoin so the idea might not seem too wild for people who have already familiar with a concept. KXNG Crook is familiar with it and he just made his appearance as an expert in a HipHopDX articleon the topic:
I have crypto coins and I’ve been reading up blockchain tech just to stay in the mix of things. NFT’s hit my radar around October of last year in a conversation with a tech genius I know. I went down a rabbit hole until I discovered what Beeple was doing and was blown away.
Beeple is exactly this artist who just sold his collection called Everydays: The First 5000 Days at the first ever digital art auction at reputable house Christie’s. However, he is not the first artist to employ NFT technology. Grimes sold 10 images of her digital artwork, the most expensive for nearly $400,000, Chris Torres, the artist who first created Nyan Cat, recently sold the classic internet meme gift for over $470,000. They sold it as NFT, selling not physical objects or file copies, but ownership rights. From now own your own Nyan Cat files on the old hard disk is as valuable as the copy of the Mona Lisa printed at home.
Musicians explore this idea as well. Rock band Kings of Leon sold their latest album as an NFT, Lil Yachty and Post Malone look more towards monetising interactive experience.
KXNG Crooked, however, looks more into the ownership of art. His complicated relationship with authorship and being denied the authority over his own music after his departure from Death Row Records might be the cause of this interest and also, maybe, the area where he can try to use this new technology:
Recently someone sent me a clip of an executive from the newly launched Death Row Records speaking about releasing my music soon. In the clip, the exec said the company has reached out to all former artists and they plan to open the vault and release everything officially. Hundreds of songs from myself and others.
Although no one has reached out to me, I would propose doing a partnership with the label and releasing all of my Death Row records material in the NFT space. That shit would be crazy.
Read the full article on HipHopDX
