The Breakdown - RAC on the First Truly Free Markets for Music and Culture

Episode Date: October 17, 2020

Today’s Breakdown is a conversation with Andre Anjos – aka RAC, a Grammy Award-winning recording artist and music entrepreneur. He and NLW discuss: Starting the “Remix Artist Collective” as a business Evolving from remixing to performing artist The challenges and trade-offs of working with major labels  How the music industry beat back technology innovation where other industries failed How NFTs, tokens and other crypto innovations are opening up truly free markets for music and culture  Find our guest online: Twitter: @RAC Web: rac.fm

It's completely unbalanced. And they know that. And they use it to their advantage. I mean, it's just, it's a weird thing because it's like everybody involved in it didn't really create the system, but everybody is guilty of perpetuating it. So there's no effort into changing it because it's like, well, we're making money. This is, well, if Prince took it, Michael Jackson took it, you know, who are you? Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW.

It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and Bitcoin, and, and, and, you know, and a video. and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. The breakdown is sponsored by crypto.com, nexo.io, and elliptic, and produced and distributed by CoinDesk. What's going on, guys? It is Friday, October 16th, and today we have a really fun conversation. My guest today is Andre Agneos, better known as recording artist RAC. Now, the specific context for our conversation is that Andre has been doing a number of experiments

with crypto and NFTs in the music space, thinking a lot about how these new technologies could change the way artists interface with fans can change the business model of the industry as a whole. But what I didn't want to do is just give you guys a kind of crypto talk for 20 minutes that doesn't have the appropriate context. And what I mean by that is that I think that sometimes when we talk about crypto solutions, we totally lose the relevant underlying context of the industries where the problems are that crypto is trying to solve. Andre is, as you'll learn, a geek about technology,

but he's coming at this space from the standpoint of a musician or recording artist, a music entrepreneur in many ways, who's trying to figure out how to evolve and diversify his model while also thinking about different ways to connect and engage with his fan base. When he's doing experiments, it's because they have the potential to change his business, to change his way of doing things. And as you'll learn, this isn't a person who's just an artist and stumbled into the business side. This is a person who went and got a music business degree

and started RAC originally not as a performing artist RAC, but as the remix artist collective. It was a shop for doing remixes, just as remixes started to be really seen as not only an art form in their own right, but an essential part of releasing a new song. Because of that, we go way back into the music industry. We go back not only into Andre's career,

but really trying to understand the problems that artists in the music industry face from an actual business perspective. I thought it was really important to give everyone almost a primer in some of the ways that the music industry operates so that you have better tools to understand if and how these different experiments might be useful to address some of them. I will, however, also admit that I love this space. I don't get to talk about music very much, so this is a little indulgent for me. It's why I'm giving it to you on a Friday.

It's definitely a long, long form extended conversation. We talk about culture and markets and so much else. So if you're into this, you will love this conversation. And if you're not, you might learn something. So either way, I appreciate you hanging out and let's dive in. All right, Andre, it is so great to have you here today. I'm stoked to be here. Thanks for having me. So we were just talking about this a little bit before,

but there's so much to dig into. But I think that sometimes the conversation in crypto specifically around some of the things that you've been working on, whether it's NFTs or personal tokens or just thinking about community, they get totally decontextualized and uncoupled from the industry, which has a problem that is being tried to, trying to be solved, right? And I think that I want to take some time to actually kind of bring people into the music industry, to understand kind of what the challenges are as an artist, how things have evolved, because I feel like it's really important context for everything that you've been doing. But I guess for people who aren't as familiar, let's go back to, the beginning. What is RAC or how is it changed? Because it's changed quite a bit since,

since first being an RAC. So, okay, just real quick. So basically like RAC as it stands today, to me, is sort of an umbrella. Some people call it a brand. Call it whatever you want. It's sort of a name that I've worked under for many years. And I've done a million different things. I've written for TV film. I've written for a ballet. I've put out original work. I've done remixes. I've done everything. And, you know, I've also done a lot of things in crypto especially. So it's sort of like a loose sort of thing, like this entity that I just work under. And it gives me sort of creative freedom and a sense of coherence across all these different things that allows me to be really flexible and jump around all kinds of different projects and things that interest me, really.

So that's kind of like the. super broad a version of it, but, but to go back to like where, where it started. So I was, I was in college in, in, in southern Illinois, middle of nowhere. And I, I was like trying to, like, break in, I was getting a music business degree. And I was like, okay, like, there's literally nothing around here. Like, what am I going to do? And I, I basically just realized my sophomore year. I was like, oh, I actually need to like do something on my own. I need to start my own business. Nobody's going to hand this to me. I just need to do my own thing. So my whole approach with RAC initially was to start a business, and I call it Remix Artist Collective.

So the idea was a collective of remixers that would do work for hire for labels. And that was sort of the extent of the idea. And I brought in a couple different people. And we started doing this thing. And it actually took off right away. My first client, if you want to think about it that way, is the shins in like one of my favorite bands. So, you know, it kind of took off right away. But, you know, slowly what I realized was happening was this, you know, everybody wanted me to do the remixes and not the other guys. So it kind of quickly turned into more of a solo project.

And, you know, that over time cascaded into all these other different things. And, you know, that's, I feel like this is so short. But like, basically, like, I've done just like a million different things over the years, remixes and all that. And it's sort of ballooned into what it is today, I guess. So I think I want to bring people back. So I don't know how much I've talked about this on different past podcasts, but I've been super interested in the music industry forever. Like, been always a step away. A company that I worked on for a long time was helped big brands figure out interesting new things in tech and was very kind of close to also helping them find interesting new art.

artists, right? And so I've been watching this for a while. And I think one of the things that's maybe hard or people wouldn't necessarily understand is that like when you were starting this 2007, 2008, 2009, from a music perspective, right now, we live in a world where dance influence music has totally transcended across all genres, right? And it is just omnipresent everywhere, right? Like the diploization of absolutely everything, you know? And, and... Diplization. I like that. I'll use that from now on. Right. But at the time, that wasn't the case yet.

We were just coming off. I mean, the shins are a really interesting case and point. Like, it was that first era of indie where it really broke out with Arcade Fire and the shins and these bands who were actually able to do things, start to rip some autonomy back, pioneer new styles. But this was like the pitchfork era. And it really wasn't until 2009, 2010, 2011, especially that dance music started to ascend. And it's interesting.

It's super fun having this conversation now a decade later because I was just going back through my old hype machine, like favorites from, from 2011. And it's like a remix that you did with Gigamesh, who's also in crypto. And then like, he's a fan of the podcast, by the way. I should mention that. That's amazing. Yeah. Shout out to Gigamesh.

And Hollywood, the first single with Penguin Prison. And I remember seeing these things that I saw you at South by Southwest, like, I don't know, probably a hundred times because I feel like every tech company had you play at their party. Yeah. But it's interesting to hear, I guess, and this is a long way of getting to this. that you were thinking about it as a business right away too, like that there wasn't necessarily for you going to be this divergence between, like you weren't going to separate, okay, here's my artistic goal and here's my business goal,

and there are going to be two separate things. But thinking about this as like this new opportunity and obviously like the rise of social internet technology was happening along the way too. I mean, I guess let's talk about how has technology like evolved and influenced the way that you think about both the artistic process but also the business process since then. because really what we're going to be talking about with crypto is just the next evolution of a technology platform that you're playing with, right? Yeah, so I've always been interested in technology. I mean, I've been playing, I've run like Linux machines until I was like 13, 14.

You know, it's like sort of been like an interest of mine for a long time. I've always been following like new platforms. And I feel like my career, I could say this, again, it maybe sounds obvious now, but like my career would not be possible at all without any of these sort of new platforms and technology. and all that. I'm not the kind of artist that would work in the traditional system of the music industry.

I've had some success in that world, but not through the traditional path. Like almost in spite of yourself, right? Right. Right. So like the fact that this started, yeah, kind of like more business-minded maybe

or started doing remixes. So that whole thing you're talking about like artistic vision like that really only came after. And it was almost like, Like, I kind of joke around sometimes say that I'm a reluctant front man because I've like always been trying to, you know, kind of shield myself behind other people, like do things with other. It's like, like, I was like, like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, trying to try to do my thing and be creative. And, and, and, and, and everybody's like, no, we want you to be the face of this, you know. So, so that came, that came after.

And, you know, then I sort of embraced it, you know, it. if there's enough people saying that that's what they want out of me, it's like, okay, maybe I should take this seriously and do it. But to go out this technology, I mean, you know, back in 2007, you know, this is the, the MySpace era where, you know, you had a MySpace profile with four songs and then that was like, that was really the industry standard. It was like if people would get signed off of their MySpace engagement, you know, or how many friends they had. It's kind of funny in hindsight. But so around the same time, you know,

blogs started to show up. And I was like, okay, like, RSS was like a thing. And like, it's like all these different blogs are trying to pop up. And actually, I think I stumbled on it because, like, there was one blog in particular that posted one of my very early remixes, like one of the first or second one. And I was like, oh, this is interesting.

There's like sort of an ecosystem of like these, like, independent writers that just love music and they just want to talk about it. And, you know, blogger was like, I don't think even blogger was around. It was sort of like everybody had their bespoke little website set up. And they were hosting their own MP3s. And it's like, okay, you know, this is interesting. So I basically just started reaching out. I was like, hey, how's it going?

Like, do you want to, do you want to talk about my music? Check it out. You know, like, and I got early, I got in early with those people. And, you know, they were still dealing with hosting and like all this stuff. but they were kind of nice to me early on. I think nobody really noticed them. And as it started to grow, suddenly SoundCloud sort of solved that hosting issue. Because that was actually originally what SoundCloud was for was to host MP3s online because otherwise you'd have DMCA takedowns and like all this stuff.

So SoundCloud was sort of like a way to mitigate hosting costs and copyright protection basically or like copyright takedons. So, you know, that mixed with then suddenly there's hype machine that's aggregating all these blogs. It was like this perfect storm for me to have this massive catalog of remixes. This is like a couple years into it. Where suddenly I'm like dominating the hype machine charts, you know, it was like sort of my little pocket of the world. And then suddenly for at least a couple years, that was like the coolest thing. You know, that was like that was where labels were finding new artists. That's where fans were finding new artists.

The blog scene was like this really cool. Super vibrant for a minute there. It's really, really a thing. It's really a shame like how it's sort of fallen apart. I mean, I guess that's with all things. But, you know, it was such a vibrant, interesting community of like independent writers that loved music and they talked about it. It was almost like just because they liked it. It wasn't like it wasn't this, you know, kind of business.

You know, I feel like most of them probably lost money. You know, they maybe made a little bit. bit in Google ads or something, but not really. So I sort of benefited from that first wave. And this is all leading into, you know, where you're talking about like the boom of the electronic music world where, I mean, of course, electronic music has been around for a while, but this first real kind of cross-section of like hype machine, you know, SoundCloud, you know, early social media, like just all at once was like so perfect for EDM that the labels were like. like, uh, wait what? Like, you know, what, what, what's going on? Uh, you know, they didn't really

understand it. And I mean, like, you know, Avici and like all kinds of people came out of that, um, even to some extent the chain smokers. And I mean, my career is certainly hyper accelerated by that, that movement. Even though I never, never necessarily felt like completely in that world, I was like kind of tangential, you know, yeah. I mean, I mean, the interesting thing from it just from music perspective is that like, I do remember like 2012 going to like business of EDM conferences that had like the Summit series kids like hosting a conversation with Scrilex, you know, like about like the business of dance music. And it was all lumped in under this dance music rather than just like it's been, it's gotten finally like really blurry again

where it's like everyone produces like a bedroom producer from 20, you know, 10 would. Whether you're making hip hop or, you know, like every kid on TikTok who's producing music is doing it in a similar way no matter what their genre is, right? Which is amazing. Like as a technological breakthrough, I mean, if we're going to continue that thread, like how cheap it's gotten to record on a professional studio level with just a laptop, that's incredible. That happened in my lifetime. You know, that's something to be like super stoked about. Yeah. So anyway, so this is all coming up into just kind of this wave that's riding up, you know, 2012, 2013.

It sort of goes mainstream. I think that's where I cut into your story. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I guess, okay, like 2013, yeah, like, I'm sort of, I had, I feel like at that point I was like five, five years into this. And by the way, like I graduated into a financial crisis. So that was great, you know. Yeah, a lot of us share that. Yeah. Crazy moment. But so, yeah, to even, the fact that I have a music career is like insane to me.

But so in 2013, you know, it's five. six years into it. And, you know, I had started, I had a good DJ career. I was touring all over the world. I'd played most continents, you know, like I, sort of riding that, that electronic music wave. And that was great. It was fantastic.

Even though I didn't really come from a DJ background at all, like it was just, I was just like a producer. Like, I just made music, again, literally in my bedroom. And so it just seemed like, you know, it was kind of the right moment for me to start thinking about doing original work because I had spent so much time doing remixes and I'd sort of built a fan base around working off of other people's music which is kind of an interesting model that didn't really exist before that.

I mean not to like as a full career path, you know, other people had done remixes obviously but not as like a focus. So I carved out that niche and I was like, okay, maybe I'll try my hand at original work because like creatively speaking it's not that different you know um especially if you're collaborating with the different vocalists or something like that it's really not that far off it's at the end of the day it's all making music you know it's maybe a different starting point but um they're perceived very differently but technically they're kind of the same thing so i was like okay let me start working this is maybe actually 2011 that's when i really started to think about this

and i i started compiling these these demos these songs that i wrote um you know, just instrumental demos. And at this point, I had built up a network of different artists and, you know, different people that I've remixed and collaborators and things like that. So I was like, hey, do you want to sing on one of my tracks? Like, let's try it out, you know? And I, like, it's funny how my, like, my aspirations at the time were just so small. I was like, okay, maybe I'll do like a 12-inch, you know, like limited DJ single type of a thing, white label, you know, something pretty small. and and and and the the first person that actually signed on like officially was Kelly from Block Party.

So like, so like, okay. All right. You know, amazing. And to give him a lot of credit, you know, because of him signing on to this, so many other people were like, oh, okay, if Kelly's on on this, I mean, it's going to be cool. So like, let's get all these other people. So I was able to get a lot of really interesting and some of my favorite artists like on that first record. And this is something that I did on my own by myself. I didn't have like I have a team.

I have a manager and whatever. But like for the most part, it was me just networking and building the album by myself. And then it all culminated kind of like late 2012. We started shopping it around to different labels. Because at the time that was still like the most obvious model. I mean, let's talk, let's like bring the, what the, how the monetary flow of the music business works. Like what the, what the standard path was. I feel like, you know, what parts of it you've had to participate in or you have participated in versus what parts you kind of avoided.

I think that would be really helpful for people to understand too. Yeah. So because of remixing, it's interesting because I've actually had the opportunity to work with like literally every label and every model. I've tried everything. I've worked with everybody. Like, I know who does a good job, who doesn't, you know? So like and and those people move companies. So like I kind of yeah, yeah, yeah.

You got a, you get a sense of like who you want to work with and who you don't. But okay, so there's a couple different models. So I'll speak about it kind of on a high level. But basically the most prominent model that everybody knows is the major label track. So when I'm talking about major labels, this is, you know, Universal Warner or Sony. Those are sort of the three main labels they control. 80% of the industry. They have a lot of power.

Without getting like tin foil hat about it, it's like they kind of run the show, you know? And so so there's a lot of benefits to that and there's a lot of downsides. And I think at the time, especially in 2011, that seemed to be the only real viable option for something that was pop leaning, you know, which was the kind of music that I was making. And I was doing that very intentionally. It wasn't like, you know, I wanted to have something, again, because I'm coming from a business mindset. I want to do something that's creatively fulfilling, but also commercially viable. I'm not trying to, you know, like, there's a fine line in between the two. And I was trying to do that.

So it made sense for me at the time, really to work with a major label. And, you know, it's funny how like when you're going into it, everybody is like, oh, this is great. We're all friends. Yeah, yeah. This is amazing. You know, like, Interscope, cool, cool label, you know. And, and, like, I do want to be fair to labels because, like, they do put up a lot of risk, financial risk. They put a lot of money into it and all of that.

But the model is basically, they give you a larger advance up front. And, you know, this could be anywhere from 350 to a million to two, I mean, depending on who you are and how much hype there is. And if, like, other labels competing, you can kind of, like, play them off of each other and things like that. So, so that was, I found myself kind of in that situation where I have, like, a major label interested in the album that I worked on my own. So it's like, they literally had nothing to do with it. I just, like, I made it on my own. So the fact that they were into is like, okay, cool. I have a little bit of leverage here.

And, you know, they, we essentially, you know, like, I have an attorney, like, negotiated, like, basically a pretty standard major label deal, which, is, you know, a large lump up front and in a very low royalty on the backhand. So the way that I, that's very common is still to this day, still the most normal thing. Like when Kanye tweeted out his contracts, I'm like, well, I pretty much got the same deal. I mean, different money, like, money levels, but like essentially the same deal. And they've been doing that since forever, you know, since the 90s. So it's like, there's sort of a precedent set. and nobody wants to change it and they make so much money that they don't even care.

So it's the whole idea is we're going to pay you up front and shut up and make music and we'll maybe pay you again and we're going to take all the profit basically. So I think that's okay if you know what you're getting into, you know, and if you're okay with making that tradeoff and what is essentially a buyout, you know. Yeah. It's like it's like a mini acquisition. of like a not yet created creative material. I mean, I think this is where one of the questions comes in.

There's two sides of the, or there's a bunch of different sides of this debate, but one of the things that I'm really interested in is, is one, do people really understand, you know, like what they're getting into? Like, especially given how aggressive the industry is with kids, you know, 18, 19, year old kids who pop off. Like, that's one part. But the second part is like, what should our expectations be about the ownership of creative work in perpetuity or for how long, right? I mean, this is Taylor Swift's battle,

you know, over the last couple of years. It's definitely been the thing that, like, has shined the brightest light on this question. It's like, some people are like, yeah, but you signed that deal. You knew that was the terms. Other people are like, yeah, but those terms are almost by definition exploitative. Those shouldn't be the standard terms. That shows an unbelievably unbalanced power relationship, right? It's completely unbalanced. And they know that. And they use it to their advantage. I mean, it's just, it's sort of, it's, it's, it's a weird thing because it's like, everybody involved in it didn't really create the system, but everybody is guilty of perpetuating it. So there's no effort into changing it because it's like, well, we're making money.

This is, well, if Prince took it, Michael Jackson took it, you know, who are you? You know what I mean? So, so, so there's this, there, nobody wants to change it, basically, because they're making so much money. And the deals are just so unfair that nobody really challenges it. Or there's no, you just can't change it. Like so. I guess one more question on that. Just because it seems like if you're sitting from outside the industry, it's like why, like why would people take that? Especially like we've got direct connections to fans now, right? Like you can go direct. Like, you can work around the system. Like that's kind of like a normal thought. And I mean, what role do you think continuing to have a pretty strong strangle hold on terrestrial radio and

kind of the main mechanisms by which things go really pop, like allows them to perpetuate that? Yeah. So it's a lot of people make that argument. And I think it's fair. And I think things have definitely shifted over the years. Like definitely since I started my career, the independent route is far more accessible and viable. And we can get into that because that's actually something I did on my next two albums. but but but like and even in 2012 like basically like if you want to get if you want to play on the top level tier

still to this day really um you have to go to that system it's it's a well-oiled machine they control everything uh like if if you want to play on on those terms like they just own it and they like even with things like like you know Spotify and in other different platforms like like that they're still heavily controlled by you know by by these three players basically so so like if you want to play on that higher level you you just you don't really have a choice and in like when we see we celebrate like people like chance the rapper which went the independent route but those are anomalies like that's that's exception proves the role like Like people are like, oh, well, now the independent round is viable.

No, it's not. Like, not on that level. Like, Chance of Rapper got lucky. You know, like, it's despite all of the friction that he did. And props to him for doing that, by the way. But it's sort of like that it's not actually viable. And if you want to play on that level. That's not to say the independent route isn't viable.

It's like it's more like on that upper tier where most of the money is made. Sure. I think people like, people who are, I guarantee you a lot of the people who like listen to the breakdown are want to play whatever game that they're playing, whether it's because they're in crypto or Bitcoin or like global finance or whatever. They want to play at the highest tier. Tech, right? They don't want to be like a small kind of business.

They want to like be the super business. And basically what you're saying is that like if you have aspirations to that like worldwide impact, tons of people hearing it. Like it is the exception, not the rule. you have to go through this system, at least so far, right? So far. Even now, I mean, we can talk about this too more. Like, we're sort of in a weird, like, there is some bits of power shift, but you're shifting, like, the biggest power tension is in some ways, like, from the small consortium, you know, or cabal of companies to a big fucking tech platform, which is like the thing that in every other industry, everyone is realizing is really, really bad for the world, too, is having a single distribution outlet only a centralized.

create you know it's like it's that that power like on the one end you'd be like well Spotify provides a counterweight and it's like well one they're kind of bought in to the system you know until they can totally take it over but two it's like what we're left with just daniel lecville you know on the other side right and and you know um i think uh in between universal i mean this they some of the labels sold equity but that you know at one point of time they own 30% of spotify so like uh is it really a different system uh it's an insider play like there's no getting around it. Yeah, yeah.

And so when your shareholders are setting the streaming rates for artists, you know, what recourse do we have, you know? It's like they're incentivized to not to not pay us, basically. So, so and we, yeah, the Spotify model, we can get into that. Like, I have some issues with that. But, but, yeah, like, I really think that even though the independent route has become viable and you can still carve out like a pretty good living, as an independent artist, but like if you have ambitions to be a big artist, you really don't have an

option. And it's, I think a lot of people don't want to accept that, but it's just true. I mean, like even in 2020, it's still true. I'd like to think that it's changing, but I think it might take a while. I don't know. Yeah. Well, so let's keep bringing up. So you do, you go the, you're doing the major label thing first, right? Is that, so that's where we're, where we're kind of like picking up the thread of the story with that album in 2013. Yeah, yeah. So I did that. And like they put a lot of resources into it.

It's interesting when a label that scale does stuff. It's almost careless because they have so much money. They just, they overspend on everything. And it's just interesting. Like, for example, we have this one music video where one of the ANRs, like didn't like it. So we just did another video. And it's like, well, there's $60,000 that we wasted, you know?

Yeah. You know, so it's like, and that's on me. I have to pay that back, you know? So it's sort of like, like I have no say in it. Like they just decide that. There's a lot of weird things around that too, like creative control over what a single is going to be. You know, like things like that is like often artists are kind of like, okay, I think it should be that, but whatever, you know? Yeah.

And it's funny like going into these conversations early on. because it's like, oh, yeah, we're very artist-friendly, whatever. You know, we won't interfere with that side of things or whatever. But, you know, of course, when there's money on the line, everything changes, you know. Everybody's like, oh, this song's popping off. That's going to be the single or, you know, we're going to tack on a song to your album or, you know, disrupts the entire flow. So it's like sort of a loose, like, you know, people are just like, oh, yeah, we're artist-friendly until we're not.

you know. So it's, it's a give and take. I mean, I like, I really did go into it, like, knowing that it was a tradeoff and that, I mean, in all things considered, I had a great time compared to some other people that deal with major labels. And they, they did support me. And they, they definitely kickstarted in my career in a way that an independent label couldn't. So like, to give them credits, like, they did help me in the long term. quite a bit. Is that worth 85% or like 80% of my royalties? I don't know. That seems a little bit lopsided, but you know. At least you feel like you went into it, like knowing exactly what you were dealing with, what you were getting into, you know. See, you kind of touched on this.

It's like I had a good team. I had a manager. I had experience in the industry. I had an attorney that vetted the whole thing. industry veteran that made sure that it was at least up to par, you know, with like how things are usually done. And I benefited from that. So, but there, when you get like, when they pick up some 17 year old kid with no representation and they sign him to like a 10 year deal, it's like, yeah, that's a little shady. So, you know, it's a spectrum. I sort of benefited from like, you know,

having help. Yep. And most don't, I guess is my point. Yep. So, so, you know, I'm glad that I went through that experience in hindsight. I'm glad that I went through it. I met a lot of wonderful people. Again, like this isn't like me knocking the people because there's a lot of people

that really love music and really want to see it. But it's sort of like the infrastructure level side of it is just sort of fundamentally broken. And it's perpetuated. by the people involved because there's no incentive to change it. So we're just at this impasse where just nothing gets better. It's just, you know, like we chip away at it slowly, but not fast enough, you know. And the other side of it is that, you know, when the industry really started in the 50s, it was, I mean, people might argue with me, but it's essentially started by the mob, you know, and they like kind of, you know, their idea of fair is maybe a little bit different. So, like, you know, we've sort of been chipping away at those, like, hyper, you know, kind of borderline extorting kind of methods, like, over the years.

And better place now, but, yeah. You also had this really interesting phenomenon where the music industry was in some ways, like, the first that almost got extinguished by the rise of the internet, right? And what ended up happening is that they learned how to control the internet, fat, with. faster than other industries. You know what I mean? Like digital publishing news outlets and stuff like that did not, right? They had things totally changed around them in ways that they couldn't. Like when Napster was sued out of existence and that kind of all went down, you had a music industry that came back stronger in terms of its ability to absorb, like it tightened control in a lot of ways. Whereas if Napster hadn't been one of those first breakout apps, like if

SoundCloud was the first thing like Napster, which is a counterfeit, factual that's impossible to imagine but it's i don't think it's it's impossible that like the music industry would be in a way different place just by because it wouldn't have had time to adapt you know out from while the rug was pulled out from under it and they almost they really did almost lose control yeah uh we were so close we were so close i mean to be honest even uh you know talking about soundclad i like i a lot of people don't know this but sound cloud was sort of a fully independent company and they had real traction. So when I was signed to this major label, I had like 5 million followers on SoundCloud,

like this amazing platform. And they were telling me is like, you can't post on SoundCloud. And I'm like, why? It's because we're currently in a legal dispute. It's like, I don't care. I'm going to post this. And they got really mad at me. Like, I actually think that's maybe one of the reasons why, you know, they just like

kind of let me go because I just didn't do what they wanted. And like, you know, they like, I had this amazing. amazing platform where I was reaching all these people and they didn't want me to use it so they could use me as leverage in their internal whatever. Right. Well, and also because it's that's you own that relationship with like with that set of fans and that's very threatening. You know what I mean? Especially if like if again, if part of your business model is predicated upon owning the mechanism of control, that's why I kind of brought up radio before. Um, like that's that gets very scary, you know? Yeah. And in like in around like 2014, 2015, like when all this was sort of unfolding, that's when SoundCloud started have all these legal troubles and they were renegotiated. They were like, and that's, like, if you look at my stats,

it's literally like that's when all the play is started to go down and that's when Spotify, the major label owned platform, started to go up. So it was, I think that was like an intentional kind of like they were holding them down and let the incumbent player rise. Even though on the surface, I think, I don't think most people realize that Spotify, was the incumbent player, but they were. So SoundCloud was like sort of like the last independent

kind of platform like that, uh, that, that really had a chance at liberating people. And, um, and it, and it just kind of failed. I think, yeah. So this, I mean, this is good. We're going to, we're kind of, I'd love to kind of like fill in some of the gaps in terms of like then how you evolved your strategy and just how you started to think differently post, post that kind of, uh, major label era. But I think that so much of this comes down to timing and where power lies. Like, you know, if SoundCloud started today, I mean, obviously this is, I think things like audience are hoping. The challenge now is overcoming the hurdles of network effects by everything being on the platforms that they're already on, which is, I mean, the, like, it is the make or break

challenge, I think, for so many, you know, not just for music, but anyone who's trying to break out of kind of other systems is, you know, can you get like decentralized Twitter sounds great unless you can't get anyone to shift because everyone's on Twitter, you know? Right. So there's that issue, but the power in like those five million fans that you had or that wasn't enough at that time probably to do anything comparable. Like it wasn't close enough to a one-to-one comparison with the power of the labels for them to have to negotiate.

They could just try to kill, you know? Right. Yeah. And I think that's in some ways, like, the farther on we get, the more that these platforms rest control from traditional systems, that's why, like, that's why it's kind of the scariest thing in some ways when, like, the old guard buys into the new platforms because they're, you know, they're just sort of perpetuating their power in a different way. Yeah. And, like, the way that I think about major labels today is more like lawyers with a little music on the side. And it's sort of like, you know, just sort of perpetuating that, that strangle hold on, well, because the other thing is like, because they control 80% of recorded music. So, you know, it's just like they, people want to listen to the albums of their teenage years.

Of course, you know, it's just, it's a very sticky thing. It's very hard to get out of that. It's amazing. It's amazing how much power goes into even those things. Like just, I mean, another. case in point is that, you know, the estate of Prince hires Troy Carter to manage his estate because they have to constantly fight those battles, you know? Like, even though he's gone, they hired one of the, like, most tenacious people in the industry to protect them against

the industry, you know? Yeah, yeah. It's wild. Yeah, it's pretty wild. And I guess maybe just to continue the path a little bit. So, so after, after, uh, like I had this sort of major label experience, put that album out, and it did well. And, you know, of course, it has the machine behind it. They definitely leverage that. I can't tell you how many ads I got. I was in like, you know, like Go Daddy and like Super Bowl stuff. And like, I mean, they just control all this stuff.

Like, it's people don't realize it. But like if you see any kind of major ad campaign, it's most likely major label artists. and because a lot of the income comes from that. And anyway, so like, you know, I had great, like, in terms of the career building, it's great because I was, like, suddenly everywhere. And it took my career to new heights that I did not anticipate when I was starting. You know, I was just like, again, I was just like doing this remix thing. And then suddenly I'm, like, you know, collaborating with all these, like, pretty well-known artists.

And, you know, that was going well. I was on tour, like, selling out shows everywhere. New York sold out Terminal 5, and it was like, oh, my God, this is amazing. And then after that, like, I think I got really lucky, actually, because, you know, so I signed technically like a five-option deal. And what that means is, like, they give you, or they have the option of signing your next five albums. And I think because mine, even though it was successful, it wasn't successful enough for them to be like, let's sink another X amount of dollars into this and and keep and also there was some friction in between us like I wasn't I was definitely not happy and and also in the midst of that the sublabel that I was

on was essentially like sort of disintegrating and moving off so it was like sort of the all these things that combined and basically I kind of got to like leave you know yeah yeah yeah so it was like oh okay sick all right you guys let me go a lot of a lot of artists get stuck in these deals forever and they can never get out so and that ends your career effectively so I um uh like I feel really lucky that that I you know I just got out so immediately after like a month later I was like because I had already been working on music it's like I put out a single uh it gets like it's the number one track on new music Friday it's like like crazy amounts of plays and uh and I think that the label I was like, oh, shit.

So I was sort of like literally around Coachella. Like I was an unsigned artist playing Mojave tent at Coachella. Like not a bad place to be, you know. So, you know, I kind of, you know, a lot of people, there's a lot of interests. And we sort of, again, like I'm happy that I have a good team around me. They know the business. I'm very involved in all of this stuff. you know, it's really good to have somebody experience, you know, kind of around to help guide you

through it. And so we had a lot of interest. We kind of talked to a lot of people. And even from other major labels and all that, and I was like, I don't want to go to that again. Like, I really value my creative freedom. I don't, I'd rather take less money and, and more upside, more long term, and work with the label that is cool, has a reputation. Like, it's, it. is creatively focused and you know, you can pretty quickly weed out the people that are just in it as like, see, you know, it's not just dollar signs,

but are just like, oh, buying into the hype, you know. Totally. So like once I found a team, and this is Ninja Tune by the way, or counter records technically is the name, they have like imprints of the label, but Ninja Tune was like a very well-known, you know, established independent label,

one of the biggest sort of like independent labels, based in the UK, rich history and electronic music started by an artist. So it's like all the, all the perfect kind of, you know, things that I was looking for. And we really got along. And, you know, we did a much smaller deal, you know. Like, in fact, I actually didn't even take in advance. I was like, let's put it all into marketing. Let's let's just blow this up.

Let's, I'd rather get money elsewhere doing other things than like taking some check and having to recoup it. So I would rather sort of build my career that way and invest in it. And actually as of today, that second album is now recouped, which is sort of unheard of. So like now for the rest of my life, that album will be paying out royalties. And I would kind of mention the major label deals are about like 80, 20 roughly. This one, these are, they're different than net revenue. So 50-50 splits. So it's like basically after all the income, you know,

anything that we spend is paid off. It's 50-50 split for the rest of my life, basically. Actually, not even for the rest of my life. It's actually for 15 years. It's a license. So I own my master's too. Yeah. Which is, by the way, this is like,

this is getting like a little into the weeds for people. But it's such an actual big deal though. Like, I mean, so one, the psychological difference between like 80-20 and 50-50 is so insane. You know what I mean? like, but I also think that like owning the masters is like, this is the thing where you see artists just like later in their career, be like, what the fuck did I sign? You know, that like this thing that came from me is just like, I have to beg to use it. Most of the time I can't. They can do like my collection can be sold to another. It's just an asset on a balance sheet somewhere, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it really is. Like, again, like I was aware of what I was doing. Again, my team, they, they, they, they, they, they, very clear about this. And I made that choice and I'll live, I'll live with it. It's fine. I'm glad that I changed that method after. But, but yeah, no, owning your master is definitely

important. And there's ways to get it back, you know, reversion and things like that. But for the most part, you know, yeah, you're with a major label, you're essentially selling your rights. And yeah, no, it's like with the music industry stuff, it's very easy to get in the weeds because it's so different than other industries. And I think there's a lot of nuance too that a lot of people don't appreciate. But to your point about the psychological effects, like 80-20 feels like they own it. I am just collecting something on it potentially. 50-50 feels like, oh, we're partners.

We're working together. We're alongside. They put money into it. They invests in it. And I feel like they should get a return on that investment. That makes sense to me. Maybe it's still a little high, but, but, but, but it's like that's sort of the model of the independent label, which is like 50, 50 net revenue. And, and then it's usually a 15 to 20 year license depending on what you set.

So, so they get to, they get to monetize by at a 50% rate, all the income that is generated by the album and those, in that period of time. So, that felt pretty good. And the thing is like, if an album does really well in that context, you can make like, like life-changing money. Whereas opposed, you can make life-changing, or you can have an album that's like three or four times as big on a major label and not even change your life at all, financially speaking. So, or maybe not even make any royalties. So it's kind of crazy. This episode is brought to you by crypto.com, the crypto super app that lets you buy. Buy, earn, and spend crypto all in one place and earn up to 8.5% per year on your Bitcoin.

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Visit elliptic.co slash coin desk to talk to a crypto compliance expert today. That's elliptic.com slash coin desk. How did moving to the independent label shift how you thought about, well, one, I guess we should also talk about like how touring fits into the business model of musicians, especially bringing it up into 2020 and the complete evaporation? of that as an economic stream. But how did it also make you think differently or about distribution in your relationship with your fans? Because ultimately that's a lot of what we are going to get into

with the crypto side of things. Yeah. Well, throughout all of this, I think what I realized, like I had to really hone in on like, what do I want? Like, what do I really want at the end of the day? You know, it's like perhaps to make an impact to reach a good amount of people,

to find an audience, to have an impact in their lives, Like, those are sort of the core things that I care about. I want to make a living. I want to make a decent living. Like, I don't want to be the meme of the struggling artist that's so tired, you know? Like, I just want to be paid fairly for the value that people are getting out of my work. You know, I don't think that's an unfair thing to ask for.

So, like, like, I had to sort of think about what do I care about? What do I want? And then try to, you know, find ways to do that. And the independent route made sense for me then because they're investing money. And again, we felt like partners. We're kind of building this together. They're helping out with the marketing. They're getting it into independent record stores.

We're making vinyl. Like, they're paying for music videos. Like, they're doing a lot of cool stuff that I probably couldn't do on my own as an independent artist. I didn't have the kind of financial stability for that. And I mean, you kind of touched on. touring and all alongside this, I feel like touring is kind of like a totally different world. And actually a much more competitive one. And like I've been thinking about this a lot.

It's like, why is touring 80% of the revenue for musicians? And I think it really, I think it's because it's a much more competitive market where artists have much more leverage. Because there's a lot more competition for, so the fees go way up. you know, because you're able to, because there's demand and, and, you know, you as an artist are creating that demand. And this is like probably the closest thing that artists can do to price that, you know, price that. Whereas with a major label, it's a lot less competitive there or with just labels in general.

It's a lot less competitive. So it's not really sort of a true market. So the, my point is like the touring side of it is. is a lot more viable and robust. And it's fallen into like a better kind of system that feels good kind of for everybody involved. You know, so for example, like the promoters that put on shows, they take on the financial risk and they get the upside. But for an artist, you get perhaps a guaranteed fee. And that is good because then you know what you're going to get.

there's a little bit of upside for selling out. But for the most part, it's sort of like a flat fee. You know what you're getting. You negotiate that. Feels good. So you do it. And then you can cover your costs. You know what they are.

And you can make a good living doing that. So that's like that to me is a symbiotic relationship versus the sort of toxic, you know, one-sided relationship of the recording side. So of course, that now 2020. completely fell apart because, I mean, nobody could have seen this coming, I guess. And now, I feel somewhat lucky because I haven't relied on life touring for a long time. I've diversified a lot of other things into other things. And so I'm not hurting as much as maybe some other people. But, you know, it's a big blow to the industry. And one, and presumably, like, if you diversely,

like if you diversify like you diversified intentionally to give yourself like a foundation that could give you more flexibility and freedom right if that's kind of like a goal that you were chasing it wasn't like you just happen to be diversified and didn't at the tour you know most artists don't well one they don't necessarily think like that but two it's like it's a whole process to do that i imagine yeah and um it's two-sided because like the diversification keeps things interesting and I like to write a lot of music. So I have my hands in a lot of different things because I'm just trying to keep it interesting for myself. Like if I'm doing the same thing over and over again, that's like I go crazy.

So it was partly that, but also it's just more stable over the long term. I mean, people preach this in the financial markets and I think a lot of the same things apply. You don't want to spread yourself out too thin, but there's a happy medium that makes sense. where like if one thing goes down, at least you have these other aspects of your career that are still viable and working. So, you know, that was approach. And I was also getting kind of sick of touring.

I toured for like seven or eight years by then, and I was just like, I'm tired of being on airplanes. You know, I kind of want to spend a little more time at home and spend more time working on music, really, which is my true passion, not necessarily touring. So I felt like somewhat prepared for it But like a lot of artists are completely blindsided by it And I remember like even in March

Like even friends of mine were like Oh yeah, we'll be back in July, it'll be fine I'm like no This is not coming back Like essentially Large groups of people in small confined spaces Doing non-essential activities I mean that's the it's the vicious combo

Yeah yeah and people are I mean props to people that are trying to be creative with it like like socially distant stuff the drive-in shows and stuff yeah um props to you guys I don't I'm not interested in doing that it's just like I'd rather wait you know yeah yeah um yeah well so much of that live so much of live music is about like that energy differential and like you've just created that thing that like literally that's where the danger exists is that like that proximity to people, like, you're completely inappropriately close to strangers in any, like in any other context in the world. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like there's no other,

there's nothing else that you can do where like you're basically going to like, you know, smash up against people for, for two hours. And it's okay. It's like, it's part of the experience. Yeah. It's, it's, it is very interesting. It's pretty unique in that sense. Um, you know, like that, that proximity is really inappropriate in most situations, you know. So to, to have, have that kind of thing like happen in a life setting, I think is maybe cathartic for people because it's the only place they can experience it. And I think a lot of people are really feeling the lack of that now, you know. Totally. Yeah, that'll definitely be a high water mark from coming out the other side of this is like when that type of experience is normalized again.

You know, like some people will still opt out of it, but when it's sort of, when it becomes a thing that people do. Let's talk about how, okay, so how did you start to get, into or pay attention to the crypto space? How did you start to, well, one, I guess just from an intellectual perspective, when do you start paying attention? But two, how did you start to think about it in the context of your own business, your own career as an artist? Yeah, so I feel like I probably heard about it, you know, 2013, whatever. I think a lot of people probably saw some article or whatever. But the broader context is that I've always had an interest in computer science. You know, I have, even though I didn't study it in school, I've always been tech

oriented. I've had a lot of, you know, I have a ridiculous like home server set up. Like, you know, I just like this kind of stuff. Like, it's just nerdy and I love it. So in that context, I had also, it was like around the same time where I, again, maybe in the context of like having a little bit of money from, from, you know, for the first time my life. I was like looking at investments and I was starting to diversify that side of things too. And I was like, okay, maybe now is the time to look into Bitcoin. And this is probably late 2016. I started to look into it.

And once I really, again, not really coming from a financial background, but from the technical standpoint, it's like, oh, this is really interesting. Like this, like I didn't realize that we had digital scarcity because I had seen how that ravaged my own industry in 2001. you know, with Napster or like, or just MP3 in general. Because to some extent, you could, you could argue that the vinyl was, you know, was technically an artificial limitation. You know, it costs money to make a vinyl. So there would always be like some level of scarcity. So the fact that we were able to do digital scarcity was like, okay, interesting.

In Bitcoin's situation, obviously that's a currency. But like, okay, this is interesting. And then I started digging into it. And that's actually when I discovered Ethereum. And I feel like I stumbled on some video of Vitalik Peter and talking about Ethereum, just on a high level as sort of like a programmatic blockchain, like sort of taking some of the same principles as Bitcoin, but applying it, making more generalized. And it's like, okay, like that's like my, you know, so many ideas like, oh, this could be

applied to like a data layer for the music industry because that's, we kind of didn't touch on this too much. But it's, there's a lot of sort of silo data that nobody shares with the. other and there's a ton of inefficiency when it comes to licensing. Like, I think most things that are licensed today are still done by paper at some point. So the fact that we're doing that in 2020, I think is absurd. So, so like to me it was, I wasn't really coming at it from a financial perspective. It was more like the shared infrastructure that no single party can control.

And that to me was like, oh, I could see this applying to like all kinds of things. And there was a lot of even like blockchain projects that were creating their single use blockchains for that. And that wasn't that interesting to me. But and, you know, I kind of looked into like where things were happening. And that led me to sort of be connected with these guys called Ujo Music. And they're based in, they were actually part of consensus. So like one of the, I guess maybe you can call them incubators, I don't know, like sort of players in the Ethereum space, like Joe Lubin, one of the co-founder. of Ethereum. So, you know, I sort of dove into that world. And our idea at the time was like so

simple. It was like let's essentially create a smart contract that if you put X amount of ether into it that's equivalent to $10 or whatever, you get a link to an IPFS file, like a zip file with the album. So it's like it's as simple as we're going to get. Like we're not going to overcomplicate it. That's all it is. Like a direct to fan. type of thing. The only thing in the middle is a contract. Nobody's taking a fee, you know, except maybe like transaction fee and like, you know, at the time it's still very cheap. Yeah. Things have changed. You know, but, but, so like at the time that was like, like, let's just start here. Let's just experiment with this. And very quickly we realized, oh, we are so early.

this is way too like getting dollars into into coinbase into Ethereum into a Metamask and like getting connected to the website and like saving your seed words and like it's like you know if we complain about in the Web 2 world if we complain about like one click being friction you know yeah right like 36 steps is not going to help you. So we very quickly realize that this is a problem and that this is like far too early and and that and that. I basically, the way that I thought about is like, this is an interesting experiment. This is an opportunity for me to maybe tap into like this nascent crypto community kind of a thing and essentially promote the album to some extent. And get people talking about this idea because this idea of direct to fan, direct to your audience, this direct connection that simply does not exist in in music, really. And, you know, it's so often, like, crypto in general is so often used as like, we're going to disintermediate everybody. And it's true. But, like, my industry specifically is just so full of that that this is such like low-hanging fruit that it just seemed so obvious to me, I guess.

Like, it was like, we got to use this for something. And if all I achieved with that release was just starting a conversation about that, then I'm perfectly happy with that. And I have this kind of funny story of being on tour in Japan and like doing interviews and with a translator and people asking me about Ethereum and trying to explain Ethereum and blockchain like through a translator is like, oh my God, you know. So that was sort of my first introduction into it. And then I got interested in the sort of wider ecosystem. You know, obviously the crazy bubble, ICO bubble, whatever, like that all was all happening

at the same time. And then that obviously imploded. But despite that, what really kept me going and interested in it was actually that all these devs and all these people that I got to know over the time, over this period, kept building. And like all these, like despite the price, whatever, going up and down, all these people get building and like working on these, like, really interesting projects and a lot of music stuff kept getting built. And like, audience is an example. And I was like, okay, well, this is, this is really cool. And I'm, I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to stick with it. And I'm, you know, I'm not going to just like, you know, like ignore it like like a lot of other people did. And I got sort of loosely interested in what we now call

defy and all of that. So I got more interested in the financial side of it as well. But, but for the most part, that's, I mean, we can get into like some of the projects that I've worked on recently with crypto, but for the most part, I sort of got in in 2016 and it never looked back. So I mean, it sounds like the, like the, it was these sort of like key, key conceptual changes that you saw as having really rich potential, right? So digital scarcity, what would that mean? You know, disintermediation, an infrastructure that's shared but not owned or ownable by any one party. Like these things sat as like these, these pillars that you could see something different being architected on. And then first experiment,

kind of didn't do anything, but the people that were interested in that same experiment just kept building, which kind of brought you along with it, right? Because it's like, okay, we'll just keep fucking with it. You know, let's keep talking with it. You know, let's keep experimenting. Yeah, and it was really, I don't know,

it was sort of like the core of it. Yeah, I mean, of course, like everybody was like kind of bummed that it went from, you know, $1,400 to $88 or whatever. And it was like, of course, I'm bummed about that. But at the end of the day, that's not really the, you know, the core of the idea behind it, at least the thing that really set sparks off was like this, like the three things,

three or four things that you said, these core infrastructure pillars that I could see solving so many of the issues that we do with in the music industry. So it was like, well, that didn't change. So I might as well ride this out, see what happens, you know, and stick with it.

You know, that level of interest, you know, it kept me there, you know. So let's fast forward to some of the more recent experiments, I guess. Like what, you know, so what, let's start, I mean, maybe with what you are doing, what you've done recently and kind of what you're doing now. And then we can talk about how those things came about. Yeah. So, I guess like really mostly this year, again, I sort of been playing the D5 for a couple

years and, you know, Maker Dow, Uniswap, things like that. And so I kind of played with that. And I even explored for a little bit, like with my, I have a label, I have my own label now. And we explored in a publishing company, so we explored tokenizing publishing assets. So that was, and then we quickly ran into like securities laws and stuff like that. And I think it's something like I'll definitely revisit once the regulatory frameworks maybe a little more defined. Maybe it is already, I don't know. but it was something we explored for a little bit and kind of like tabled for a second.

But in 2020, again, I actually met these guys through some of the people at Ujo. So they introduced me to this guy, Jacob, from this company called Zora. And the whole idea behind Zora was basically tokenizing small batch, limited edition, like physical goods or merch, you know, if you want to think about it that way. So we had, even back in the Ujo days, we kind of talked about like tokenizing, everybody talked about tokenizing physical products, you know, physical object, tokenizing real estate, you know, all this stuff. And I always thought there was an interesting idea, but I didn't think really anybody had sort of applied it necessarily to the small, really small batch niche kind of thing. And or definitely didn't apply it to the typical like, you know, drop culture, hype beast worlds or whatever, which wasn't really. really my world, but I just thought it was such an interesting take on it.

And there was a bit of a precursor before this that actually spawned this company. It was called Saint Fame, which they launched essentially like a hoodie, like a long sleeve shirt that was tokenized essentially. So again, we sort of took that. And my approach was like, I'm not going to replace anything that I was already doing. So we had this idea of doing cassette tape, which I was, again, I wasn't going to do anyway. So it was like, well, why don't we make a limited edition cassette tape? It was like 100 units represented by 100 tokens.

What we're going to do is we're going to open it up to a market. We literally put it on uniswap. So people could buy and trade it however they wanted. And then at a point in the future, you could redeem it and you'd get the tape mailed to you. So that was sort of the core idea. And I guess maybe this is a little bit. in the sort of beginning of the hype phase of defy and all this stuff. And a lot of speculators came in and ran wild with it.

So I think in the first day, we went from $20 to $9.50 and then back down to $200. And then, like, more recently, we hit like $4,800, which like $4,800 for a cassette tape in 2020 to me is hilarious. Like, kind of wilds. But again, like, and again, I'm not, I'm not. going to make the argument that that's like it's true value or anything like that. But there was actually a period of time where like in between some of these hype cycles perhaps that it sort of settled at about like 240, 250. And to me at the time, I was like I guess maybe that's fair. You know, like a market, you know, through price action decided that this cassette tape, if it's limited to artificially limited to 100 cassette tapes, then that's it's worth. You know, that felt it's like, okay, that's, That's not really where I thought it was going to land, but cool. And, you know, I think what's cool about it from my perspective is, like, I didn't come out and say, okay, I'm going to sell a tape at $250.

You know, people are like, you're insane. You know, what are you talking about? Like, how dare you? You know, like, you know, people would be angry at me for doing that. But because it was decided by a market, it was like, hey, fair game. I didn't decide that. A market did. So, like, I think there's some power to that.

And to me, it really actually made me question a whole lot of other things about the music industry of how we price things and how we value things. And like, you know, speculators love them or hate them, but, you know, they, you know, price action is a way to find value or find the value of something, the financial value of something. So applying that to like a limited good and was a super fascinating experiment. and I think still today, I think it's like three grand or something like that for cassette tape. So it's, I find it super fascinating and interesting. Yeah, I mean, I think one of the, I mean, this idea, I think you hit on like the really powerful idea underlying this too. Even if someone's like kind of not interested in that, the cassette tape idea specifically, the idea of applying market pricing mechanisms to everything and making it really, really frictionless,

especially around things that have some amount of scarcity or cultural residence. You know, like this idea of trying to add or combine culture and markets is pretty fascinating. And it's like it happens whether we like it or not. But it tends to like historically culture only gets priced by the extreme upper echelons if it's a particular type of culture, right? Otherwise it's just it doesn't have that opportunity. And I think it's interesting. There's a number of different projects, even outside the blockchain space, like Otis,

out of New York is trying to do some version of this where they allow people to buy into fractionalized, you know, early, early Jordans or whatever, right? Right. And I think that understanding that understanding the relationship between culture and scarcity is one part of this and then understanding the relationship between scarcity and markets is the other part. But it's a pretty fascinating, a fascinating way to look at, you know, what, I mean, again, ultimately a lot of these questions, if we put it in the artist context, come down to

what is the right business model for artists, you know? Like, should people be totally reliant on touring? What are those other diverse streams, you know? Well, so the way that I've started to think about this is, okay, let's agree that what I do has value. It's a non-zero value. I think that's fair to say. Like, let's not set a number on that,

but let's agree that that's true. The only way that I can price, that value is by partnering with other companies that, you know, like very few companies that might give me a not very efficient price for it, you know. So, and I'm giving up a whole lot of ownership over it to do so. So it's like by removing that friction, kind of like what you were saying, it opens it up to price action in a much more direct way, which I think is very interesting and in a way that culture really has never had the opportunity to do so. So by pricing culture, I mean, some people were argued that's bad and maybe it's fair. I don't know. But like,

the current models aren't working. So we got to, there has to be something here. We got to try something. And like, I think what the, the conclusion that we're going to come to, and this is, this is sort of a new belief of mine is that I think we've been mispricing music for. like a really long time. I think it's been artificially sort of lowered and we've been sort of applying this this ad model to music where it's it's not pricing it fairly. In a way, the way that I've been thinking about it's like we've been pricing music as if it's supposed to reach six billion people and of course it's going to fail every time because like what song has six billion plays, you know? So it's this fixed price model that just doesn't really make sense. Like so so

this, and I don't really have like a clear answer for this or like a perfect model that'll fix all these problems. But I think what I do believe is that we need more experimentation and we need to, even if it's artificial scarcity, we need to play with that to find value, the true value of music and culture. You know, I think this could be applied to things far beyond, far beyond music. I mean, we're seeing it in NFTs and in other things like that. So it's, uh, like I think it's sort of opening up of a new asset class, a new market that I think a lot of people don't realize that the value has been there the whole time. We've just, it's sort of been subsidized or hasn't been valued properly. So yeah, I'm, I'm stoked to see where this goes. In financial, in financial markets in some ways, like buyers price the thing ultimately. Do you know what I mean? Like it's demand that ultimately like rationalizes. Whereas in basically every other type of market, the seller prices things. And inherently, that's likely to create inefficiencies in some way. And I think, you know, I think that the best argument are like, you will find, obviously,

tons of people who fight that kind of like culture shouldn't be priced by markets and things like that. But I think those are accessibility arguments, right? Like, cultures shouldn't, cultural shouldn't be priced, like, people shouldn't be priced out of culture. It might be a better way to like, get at that. But that doesn't mean that you can't have, like, as an artist, you're going to have fans. Like if a fan is anyone who likes you between five and ten, you're going to have tons of five, tons of sixes, bunch of sevens, like fewer eights, like a few nines and like a small number of tens. A very small.

Yeah. But if those tens are willing to and want to spend on this type of thing and can vote with their dollars, you potentially have a much more robust sustainable, like a full, each artist becomes the epicenter of a micro economy that is much healthier and better functioning. Yeah, yeah, way better. And like the, again, going back to the sort of the pricing model that we currently have with streaming, it's sort of like, I feel like the play count is a very bad metric of

value, you know. So like every play is like, like somebody that listens to on a Spotify playlist in the background is not getting the same amount of value of a super fan that listens to it intently as like trying to get all the details out of it, you know? I'd argue that that's a little bit different. So like, I think there's a lot of room for experiments. and to do it fairly too and to make it accessible where, you know, yeah, like that upper the tens or whatever will sort of maybe to some extent subsidize some of the ones maybe,

but it'll find sort of an equilibrium within that group. And like, but the current state that we're in is that there's no experimentation. There's just one model. It's binary. It's either you're in or you're out. And if you're out, you're not making any money. So it's like, so like what option do we have? And again, that's changing. But the more experimentation we have with all this stuff, the better.

And like, I just like maybe it's even like certain, maybe your most popular song is free. But then the rest of the album is on a different scale or something like that. I mean, there's all kinds of issues with like, user experience and all that that needs to be tackled. And like, again, I'm not saying this is like the perfect solution for it. But I think inherently experimentation competitiveness and in all of that, that's the way to go. Like, that's what we need. We need more of that, you know. We need more people playing with this stuff. Yeah. I mean, starting from the premise of like actually experimenting is something that has been structurally impossible in this industry and in many industries for so long.

So I guess let's talk, maybe let's close out talking about the RAC token. Yeah. Because that's the latest experiment, I guess, in this series. So, yeah, so to give it a little bit of context, I, in the midst of COVID, I started, I guess like I started streaming. I started a Patreon. I kind of shifted my model completely. I was like, I am going to stop relying on these other services. Spotify is not paying, you know, all these other.

other services are not really working for me. So let me try this direct-to-fan, the more kind of connected-to-fan model, and see what happens. I had an audience. Like, you know, speaking about Spotify, I have like two and a half million monthly unique listeners, you know, that's two, you know, that's a lot of people that every month will listen to my music. Like, if I can capture even just a tiny little fraction of that, like, that can be pretty

sustainable and that can be a pretty good model for me. And so I just went for it. And it went way better than I thought. And in the midst of that, I'm streaming and people are hanging out in the chat rooms. And I have like regulars. What are you doing on stream just for people who are trying to imagine this? Yeah. So it's a mix of performance and improvisation and talking to people and hanging out.

It's pretty loose. It's not it's not meant to be like a live performance in the typical sense. It's just like if I can call it anything, it's just hanging out, you know, and talking to the chat, people ask me questions. We talk about topics. We talk about crypto. We talk about, you know, we talk about philosophy. We talk about all kinds of stuff, you know.

We kind of get into it. And every once in a while, like, sometimes I'll do like a little bit of a podcast section. We'll have guests and we'll talk about things. And, you know, so it's pretty loose. It's, you know, it's a lot of hours to fill. So I don't take it too seriously. But I think in the midst of that, I created this permission-based Discord group. So it's like if you're a Patreon subscriber or your Twitter subscriber, you get access to this Discord group.

And here's where the real magic happened where I didn't realize this. Like all these people that had been fans of my music over the years, like, you know, 13 years or whatever, it's always been sort of like me and them. But they had never been them together. They had never really like connected with each other. And this was sort of like a turning point for me. It was like, oh, this is super powerful. This is very interesting. Because like, okay, maybe my music was sort of the thing that brought them together.

But suddenly they realized they have a lot more in common than just my music, you know. So now we have, again, in the context of COVID, a lot of people trying to connect to some extent and looking to these smaller communities. And I think this may be a trend in general, like moving away from these large platforms to smaller groups. And, you know, we have this Discord where it's very vibrant. Like people are playing games. They have like meetups. Like it's sort of this, they all these channels for different topics like design, coding, cat photos,

you know, cooking, like whatever, whatever you got gaming, you know, whatever you guys want. You know, we're sort of creating channels for this. And it's sort of become like a hub for the community. And in a sense, it's becoming that fan club, you know. And my approach to this, to bring this all together, my approach to this token was like, I've been thinking about like how to play with token.

in general. And in the midst of Defi and seeing all these platforms create this sense of cohesion and this sort of shared kind of feeling of ownership over something, like if people can rally around like a decentralized exchange, you know, like, like, I mean, that's cool, but like, you know, like, do most people care about that? Probably not. But like, if you apply that to something cultural, I mean, I think that's pretty powerful. And so that was sort of the beginning of the idea.

It's like, okay, how do we create this token? And, you know, really not emphasizing the financial side of it at all. It's really sort of just a representation of, of sort of ownership and participation in this community. And it can be used for various things within the community. That was the intent. And so, and the whole idea was like, let me just give it to the people that are participating. Let me, let me. It's funny because like at the time,

time uniswap then did the retroactive distribution i was like we were kind of thinking about that but didn't really lean into it so after we saw the success of that was like oh we should really lean into this this actually makes total sense um so i gave it i basically gave the token to all my patron subscribers twitch subscribers anybody that bought a song on band camp back in 2009 you know got it got some got an email with a token with some tokens and um and this was all done through zora so they helped facilitate that through their wallet basically. So all we needed was an email. And so it was like we're just giving it.

And we sort of, we looked at, we sort of matched the amount of tokens based on how much money they had, you know, things they had bought or how much they supported. Because that felt like a good metric where people were buying services, not necessarily, they weren't buying the token, obviously, because they didn't exist. But so the idea was like, that was a good metric to be like, how invested are they in the project, you know?

Because we're not talking about like super high amounts of money. You know, this is really just like, you know, nobody buys more than like $150 of merch. You know, it's not like we're, it's actually quite distributed if you think about it. So it's we don't really have like a whale problem. Let me put it that way. So, you know, which was sort of an issue with some of these other platforms. So the whole idea was let's play with this token. Let's get it out the door.

This is really kind of very early on, by the way. And it's like, let's get it out the door. Let's get it in the hands of people. See what they want. See what they do with it. We're building like, let's like kind of tip bot within the, within Discord. So if somebody makes this funny gif or whatever, you can tip them some tokens or whatever. You know, like it's really meant to be more of this just kind of loose community thing that people can play with.

And we just kind of want to, you know, continue to. to develop that over time. But there is more of a long-term version revision for it, which is that if this work, like, I want to be the experiment. Like, let me benefit from being the first. And let's, the thing is like, if this works for me, it'll work for a lot of other people. So there's sort of an opportunity there as well.

So that's sort of the high level thing that we're working on now. And that's called the RAC token. And, you know, that's kind of, where we're at, but still continuously working on it, obviously. What have you seen, has anything surprised you, it's only been two weeks or so, right? I think since you announced it. Has anything surprised you is that, like, are people treating it like a financial asset or are people treating it like a community currency, like Reddit clout or something like that?

Or is it both? Is it all over the place? I would say the vast majority of people are using it as like kind of a, I mean, I don't love to use the word currency because that's not how I think about it, but it is sort of a social currency. Yeah, like a Reddit Cloud or, I mean, it's a lot of things. It's a rewards token to some extent, you know, like you can think about it almost like as airline miles to some extent.

You know, like, but it's not just that. You can use it for various things, you know, obviously it gives you sort of essentially by owning the tokens, you get lifetime membership to a Discord, for example. You know, there's things like that or, you know, And we're going to add, for example, we want to tokenize ad space on my, on my Twitch stream. So anywhere from like a shoutout, you know, where it's like maybe a token or two or something like that, like you get a shout out to like the, you know, the full blown sponsorships, you know. So it could be like various things. And I kind of want it to be a lot of different things.

And the financial side of it is like we didn't, we did not create markets for it. We really, I've even not spoken about the price anywhere. like really want to put all the emphasis on on sort of the social side of it. And the other, the like something that we really try to do is give it to non-crypto-natives because they're like I think a lot of the crypto natives were, you know, probably immediately going to uniswop and like, right, exactly. Yeah, 100%. That's the first thing that I thought of been decentralized or permissionless world, right?

And obviously we can't control that and that it is what it is and like that, you know, whatever. But we're not going to optimize for that. And that's sort of like, and I've been very upfront about that. And I want people to, that's not the intent of this. I want people to use it for the community. And I want like, that's sort of how I'm thinking about it. And again, going back to sort of maybe the early conversation about like, you know, Bitcoin and like as a currency. And it's obviously an amazing application of that.

But it's sort of, it's one thing. And it serves that purpose very well. But like, you know, there's so much opportunity to play with this stuff that are not financial in nature. obviously have some financial side to it, but it's not, and I'm not going to ignore that, but it's also like, I think it depends on like where you emphasize that. And obviously in this context, it's not decentralized, you know, I mean, maybe the mechanics of it are to some extent, but it's not, it's not what people care about in this community, you know, like that's not the focus and that's not the emphasis of it. And I think you can really weed out the financialization

of it if you don't focus on it. And so that's where I'm putting all my attention is in sort of the non-financial applications of it, if that makes sense. Yeah, I mean, I think it's like this has been like an artist pursued an artist dream, the idea of like really different holistic types of ecosystems of fans. I mean, every startup in the music space to some extent for the last 15 years has had some version in their head of like, will help artists connect with their fans. more directly. Yeah, we'll help facilitate that, you know, like, I mean, seriously, every single one, band page and all these things, all that, but like, but then you take venture capital and you're, like, what your options are super limited and you get like kind of railroaded into like a very

small set of activities that are better, more efficient facilitation of the same stuff that was happening before versus, like, you kind of, you almost have to decouple the financials to allow, to allow communities to do things without, like, without inherently having a business model which leads them in a certain direction, you know? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's so true about the sort of that model of like, yeah, we want to connect the artists of the fans.

I mean, I actually believe that they really believe in it. I've never met a music startup person that wasn't super passionate. It's just there's such a narrow band of things that that industry allows you to do. Yeah. And so the way that I'm thinking about this is a little more open source. It's like, you know, I think we've seen projects benefit from that where it's like if you're a part of the community, if you build something for the community, maybe the community will reward you in sort of ownership in that community.

So it's like it's a little less financial in nature and it's sort of more tailored to the people that are a part of it. you know, so yeah, that seems, yeah, maybe a little more holistic, maybe a little idealistic, I don't know. Like, I'm sure there are unforeseen consequences to this that I'm not seeing right now. But I kind of want to be nimble and don't want to be like, this is our vision for it. And this is what it's going to be. And then, you know, in two years, realize that nobody cares. So I really getting sort of optimizing for the right people to be involved with it and getting them to sort of let's build this together.

That to me feels good, you know. It's super interesting. In some ways, you kind of have these two experiments, which on the surface seem kind of connected and part of the same thing. But like you have this one in the token that most people I think would they would think token, they would be like, oh man, that's kind of like historically because what we saw in 2017, 2018, it's like you do a token. It's like all about financial gain and it's about senior age. It's about like, you know, benefiting from the money printer. But really in some ways, it sounds like what you're trying to explore is this whole other side that we forget about in business, which is like people do things because they make them feel good, even when there's not a business model around it.

Right. Like people spend radical amounts of time with streamers, not because they get financial reward from it because it's like where they want to spend their time, right? Right. And so, like, communities having a way to interact through a mechanism that's like, you know, kind of connected to financial stuff, but it's in financial. So you have this kind of like little experiment there. And then you have this thing in the the tape, you know, and kind of NFT side, which I can see actually like applying markets to culture could end up being some of the most like ruthlessly fascinating, like capitalist, you know, like market. Like, like in a way that's potentially really healthy too, like opens up new business models for artists. But like you could.

could see those arbitrages come in and find fair market values for cultural assets and like be this like crazy fertile like, you know, financial ground, you know? So you kind of have like these like things that could go totally different ways, even though they seem like almost the opposite, you know? Yeah. Just for that, something happened with the tape token, which was funny, kind of funny, I guess, but somebody found the uniswap pool and like as we launched and and they immediately bought like 24 tapes and then like as soon as the price went out it's just like dumped it immediately like so it's we we had like from the beginning we had this like super hyper like trading kind of thing happening and you know obviously people

trying to make money whatever but and again like I don't want to say that that's the right model for everything but it's very interesting and and I think there's a time in place for it and Yeah, kind of what you're saying, like maybe there will be sort of overtime, a mature kind of market making type of activity around cultural, like cultural elements. I don't know. I think that would be super interesting. Yeah. Well, man, I appreciate you spending so much time hanging out. This is definitely, this episode's going up on a Friday. You can tell because I just let it, let it rip. I appreciate anyone who's hung out this far. I appreciate your indulgence for me getting to spend time in the music space, which I don't get to think about that much. But, But I think these are super cool experiments. I've loved watching from afar, you know, the career develop and the artistic side. So it's really cool to connect on how this sort of crypto industry is allowing you to take some of those next steps. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for your time.

And thanks for having me. Appreciate it. That interview was super long and super fun. So I'm not going to spend a lot of time with the follow up, the wrap up. But the one thing that I wanted to put my finger on is this idea of markets pricing culture or markets being a last. to price culture. We have this idea that somehow culture and art shouldn't be touched by commerce and finance, but the reality is that it already is, and it's controlled by a very specific small subset of finance that has been completely prefaced kind of against artists and

for the business owners for a very long time. The idea that true free markets for the goods, the intellectual property, the assets that artists create, could be valid. differently is something that I think is extremely exciting and frankly extremely capitalist in the best sense of the word. So I think it's really, really cool to see some of those experiments play out in real time. I think that this is just the beginning. I think that Andre is at the forefront and it's going to be really interesting to see what happens in the months and years to come. Anyways, guys, I appreciate you hanging out for this long. If you've made it this far, you must be a real fan or at least really interested in this space. So kudos to you. Hit me up on Twitter. Let's talk music.

some time and until tomorrow, be safe and take care of each other. Peace.