The Future of Music in Web3 with TK The Legend, Tarot, Domino & Jadyn Violet

this afternoon. How's everybody feeling? You guys good? Thank you guys for coming. We know there's a lot of things you could be doing here, but you chose to be here with us today.

My name is TK. I'm a singer, songwriter, and producer based in Los Angeles, California. I'm also the founder of Campfire, which is a DAO that utilizes Web3 technology to help artists improve the music industry. Uh we have an amazing panel of artists and collectors today. This panel is called the future of music in web 3.

Um so yeah, we're just going to go down the line, have everybody introduce themselves, and then we'll get into the questions. Hello, my name is Jayen Violet. Um I'm a musician at the bass level. I've been making music for about 3 four years. Uh I got introduced to web 3 um about a year and a half ago and we created this thing called the underground violet rave.

Uh, we are trying to redefine what the modern day rave is by platforming local underground scenes while seductively introducing web 3 technology. And I appreciate you for having me. Hey guys, my name is Taro. I am an artist. I am a founder of Soul Tribe Solutions, a community of um, the Soul Tribe, which I call my community of collectors in web 3.

And um, I am also artist relations at Reveal. I am wearing multiple hats, loving the blockchain, learning everything I can to um create and thrive as an artist and help other artists see the potential as well. So, thanks DK for having me. Um, what's up y'all? My name is Domino.

I'm a multi-disiplinary music artist focusing on building worlds around my albums and songs uh from fine art um to film, dance, all the things in between to tell my stories. Thanks TK. What's up everybody? My name is Alec. I am a musician, songwriter, uh also a collector.

I've been exploring uh web 3 music since 2017 or so when I helped publish a book on blockchain for the creative industries in general and I've kind of become a lot more specific since then. Um I'm a collector as well. I've supported over 150 artists um through music NFTs. Uh and I've also over 150 folks have collected my music as well. So I kind of sit right in between the artist collector dynamic.

Really happy to be here a part of this conversation. Yes sir. Yes sir. Thank you guys for being here again. So we understand that music and web 3 is still an emerging market.

So we want to start off slow, get everybody up to speed on what music and web 3 is. So this first question is for Taro. What is web 3 music and how does it differ from traditional music? Yes, what a question. What is web 3 music?

It honestly really comes down to the relationship between the artist and the fan. I think we could get into the specifics of the technology. what a smart contract means, the ownership that the artist retains through building. In web three, there's a lot of differences. Then in web two, there's usually a middleman that is um taking care of those assets and taking care of those funds that you receive and it's fractionalized and um artists are struggling.

They don't have ownership. They're struggling to make money and it goes beyond money in the space. I think it's really about the true community that you can build and have that direct artistto fan relationship where you're monetizing off of your music as an artist and you're able to create a world essentially in different ways, multid-disiplinary art. So you're less working as a product um as an artist, but you're more of like the director of creating your art and your vision in a space that feels open with the technology that we have. And so web three, web two, you're not you're not selling away your rights to your song.

If you release a music NFT in web 3, what you're doing is you you're giving away um a digital collectible. It's like a vinyl piece. So say you are so into the Beatles and you get one of their limited edition vinyl pieces. Only 50 of them exist in the world. You hang on to that as a fan.

It means something. It holds value. and over time it has the potential to increase in value and so it's bringing back value to the music and the artists that are behind that. That's an amazing answer and very in-depth for sure. This next question is for Alec.

Describe the process of creating a music NFT or putting your music on chain. Okay, good question. We're starting from the basics. Uh I think this is good. It it's going to depend where you're minting your NFT, right?

Of course, any NFT, you know, you need to have like the media file itself. So, if you're minting a music NFT, you probably want to have your audio file. Um, usually you want to have like an album artwork file. And then there's some basic information you would need like metadata level things like um any other collaborators who you're splitting your royalties with or splitting your primary sale revenue with. Um, and yeah, it's going to differ depending on where you're actually uploading your music, where you're minting your NFT.

There are certain platforms that are making more of an effort to interface with the music industry itself, right? So, in in certain cases, you might need more in-depth metadata information, but generally you just need the media file itself and um a description, a name, you know, it's really that simple. It's really as simple as having an MP3 artwork, and a little bit of ETH, a little bit of gas fees to mint your your music. It's on the blockchain, and you can do what you want to do with it from there. So that's a a great answer for sure.

Uh we'll go to Domino for this one. How are music NFT NFTTS changing the way we think about music ownership and distribution? For sure. Um I think it goes back to the artist to fan conversation. Um the distribution now is much more peer-to-peer.

Uh it's very artist to fan or person to then fan to super fan to collector. And that distribution can be more private now. It can be uh smaller even. It can be more focused on a niche group. It could be the opposite.

It could be as expansive and big as you want if that's your target audience. But it allows a customization. It allows for a unique uh approach instead of just, hey, my music's now on Spotify. I hope you listen to it. Hit this pre-save.

Uh it now becomes, hey, now you can experience this on a deeper level. Maybe have some more access to me as an artist. Uh, and that unlock alone feels like a complete shift of of distribution and ownership in it in itself. Yeah. And I think we're reconditioning ourselves on what digital ownership means.

Um, I'm sure all all of us are old enough to remember owning a CD at least, right? Um, some of us might be old enough to to remember owning a cassette tape or a vinyl. And uh you know with the emergence of the um you know DSP streaming platforms, we kind of gave up the opportunity to own anything digital in exchange for paying a subscription to essentially license um every song in the world for like $10, right? But now with web 3 music, we're looking at actually putting um music in your possession. And so that's one thing that I think is uh very incredible about uh music in web 3.

And we'll get more into that. This question is for Tero again and then we'll get to Jaden. Um, here here it is. Uh, how can web3 and NFTs be used to create new revenue streams for artists and reshape the way we think about music monetization? Yes.

O, I love this question because you can really get super creative and I like to use the analogy of merchandise in the traditional industry of selling merchandise to your fans. Um, you know, that is something that is usually the bulk of the revenue that you're making as an artist outside of web 3 along with touring, along with streams, right, or sales. But in Web 3, you're expanding that. You don't necessarily only make money from your streaming revenue or from your merch. You're able to customize it in a way where you're monetizing off of these collectible digital collectibles.

And you can do it in different ways. You can have a oneofone piece that is super rare and that has some sort of intentionality behind why it is a one-of-a-one and why someone would want to collect that. And then you have additions. You can price that at a sliding scale and open up the community and target different classes of audience. So, I like to say like as an artist in the space, it's about making different levels of entry points.

Um, when you're thinking about monetization, so you want to be able to have that one of one that's priced at five ETH and then you want to have that addition 50 editions of a song priced at 0.1 ETH. Like, you want to be able to meet other people where they're at and introduce your music in a way that um you're monetizing off of it. And then, you know, of course, the creator royalties and secondary sales is a whole other conversation. But I think monetization in web 3 definitely has more potential for an artist to build that sustainability and reinvest in their careers outside of the space.

Yeah. And I think we're looking at the diversification of revenue streams within music. I think right now we're looking at streaming in which Spotify is paying 0.003 cents per stream. Um, outside of that, if you're lucky, you can, or if you work really hard, you can go for sync licensing where there is a lot of money, um, you know, in getting placements, but overall, most artists are subjected to having to get millions and millions of streams just to make a basic income that might not even really sustain them.

And so, what web 3 is doing is creating so many different layers for how your fans can support you. And, um, like Ter said, kind of different, uh, I guess tiers in which uh, you can make money. So obviously that does come through uh making music NFTts, people can buy a certain number of editions of your NFTs or if you have a whale that is a super fan, right, that wants to give you thousands of dollars for one of one NFTs. Um that works too. But that's one thing that I'm really excited about is seeing how we can really expand, I think, the middle class economy of uh the music industry.

And I think that's one thing that is super exciting for all of us. Uh to go to Mr. Jaden Violet here who is a community builder extraordinaire. What is the difference between your audience and your community and how does web 3 facilitate building community? You know, it's it's very interesting, right?

Um I'm from central New Jersey and if anyone's from New Jersey kind of sucks, you know, there's not really a lot happening there, but anytime I want to do anything that has, you know, something related to me connecting with other artists, with other musicians, with creatives, I always have to go to New York, right? So from the four years that I've been making music, I've always wanted one thing and that's community, right? And that's such a buzz word, especially in the web 3 space, right? But I genuinely believe that's the main thing and that's the main factor that leads to a lot of people's success, right? Coming together as a collective, talking to individuals that are interested into the same thing that you guys are interested in and then growing and then helping and supporting each other.

I think, you know, we can look at people like Odd Future or like ASAP Mob, right? And they collectively came together as a community, supported each other, and then got to the top, right? And I think that's very very hard to do in a traditional web two music industry sense. And I've tried my best to do that right through you know typical web two mediums like Tik Tok, Instagram, YouTube, you name it. you know I was there trying to build connecting with people but it was very difficult right a lot of people and artists that are in that mindset are filled with like you know egotistical behaviors and a lot of you know narcissistic mindsets and I honestly can't say why that is right but when I entered web 3 I'm not sure if it's because we're early if people are excited to talk to each other and really help each other build everyone's just really nice in this space right so when I got onto Twitter which I believe is like one of the main places where web 3 culture is where web 3 community is I started to immediately talk to people, build my connections, build my network and through actually just helping each other and building throughout that um I've, you know, connected with a lot of people, right?

And learning the difference between an audience and an actual community, right? Um we're not extracting from the people in our community. We're not expecting things. We're not expecting sales. We're not expecting streams, whereas we're actually providing value to them and creating a culture where they feel like they're being involved.

I just have not seen that that much in the web two sense, but I'm seeing that all the time in the web 3 space. So, yeah, that's a literally a perfect answer, and it's a great segue to go over to Alec. How can music fans and music enthusiasts benefit from the implementation of web 3 in music? Uh well as as these guys have spoken to right one of the key unlocks of web 3 for musicians is the direct kind of artistto fan relationship. Um and it's not only can you establish that relationship but you can kind of watch it develop over time.

And I think that from the perspective of a collector from a music fan that's also a major unlock. I mean for me like I said I've supported quite a few artists in the space. I consider myself an avid borderline obsessive collector. Um, and the thing that I think really kind of pulled me in was just starting to get the one-on-one relationship with the artists whose music I was I was really enjoying and really consuming and that was inspiring me. And um, I've I've been on this interesting journey where I've played music almost my entire life.

When I got into web 3, it was first as a collector, but because I've been surrounded by so many incredible musicians by way of collecting their NFTs and being part of their communities, it's it's kind of set me back on the path of of creating. And now I'm I'm in the process of kind of building my own creative world. So I think that that's the key unlock for the collectors and the fans. And now there's also as the tooling and as the space continues to develop, those experiences become far more interesting. So now you have things like um arpeggi and kits where you can collect um either collect a certain music NFT or collect a sample pack and then that allows you to like remix have exclusive like remixing rights over a certain song for example or um Stems Dow which is doing something similar where now you're co-creating with the artist who you're supporting.

Um and I'm excited to see how that continues to develop and how those those kinds of experiences kind of grow and proliferate because they're very new. Um, one thing I will say because your question specifically said music fans, I think that there's a huge amount of work to be done for like the fan infrastructure. Like there's a huge difference between a music NFT collector and a music fan. And I think that the way that the web 3 music world works right now, you know, the people who are who are showing up to collect, there's like 10 maybe 20,000 people who are collecting music NFTts right now. Um, and that's great, but that doesn't translate to the tens of million, hundreds of millions actually, people who are listening to music every day on DSPs.

So, I'm excited also to see that that gap start to close hopefully over the next couple of years. Um, I know that we're all here to stay, so we'll all be a part of that process for sure. And I also want to talk about um what that can mean financially for music collectors, music fans, music supporters. I think there is a huge opportunity um for music fans or people with great music taste to make a sustainable income simply on betting on artists early on. So imagine if you owned the first Michael Jackson music NFT right before he became who he actually was or the first Metallica music NFT or the first Beyonce music NFT.

You're looking at those artists right now on this stage and so many of those artists are in this room. If you are taking a bet on these artists early on, as the web 3 music space begins to grow, um those assets that you own are going to appreciate in value and one day you can cash out to a super fan that just wants to have their NFT in their collection. Beyond that, there's also curation. So, we're looking at putting music in smart contracts and creating playlists where you can pay for access to listen to music exclusively. But if you're as a if you're a fan and you have an audience or a community of people that listen to you uh because you're a tastemaker, you know, I could take Jaden's music and say, "Hey, I want everybody to listen to this playlist.

It'll cost you $2.50 to listen to it." Jaden might be making $2 on every uh transaction that happens on that playlist, and you as a fan might be making 50 simply because you were promoting uh the music for that artist. And so, I think there's so much untapped potential for that that not a lot of people are talking about. out and I think once we start getting music fans more um interested in making money from supporting artists uh the space will explode.

Beyond that um I'm also running a a experiment called pedal power which is essentially like social media yield farming where uh my fans are earning crypto just by posting one Tik Tok of me every day. We've done uh this is our first week and we've already paid out $5,000 to um just 30 fans that are running this experiment to me. So with me, sorry. So, uh, there's a lot of opportunity here for sure and I definitely want to encourage everybody here, check out music NFTts. You don't have to buy one just yet, but check out the artists, get involved, and, uh, yeah.

So, we'll go to the next question. Um, Domino, this one's for Domino. How does music marketing and promotion differ in web 3 than in web 2? Yeah. Um, in a lot of ways, it doesn't differ at all to me.

Um, there's still a need to get your music out and connect with the people that like that music. Um, but then it becomes deeper when someone isn't just listening. Uh, the ownership aspect brings a sense of marketing that can be more focused. Like Alec, for example, has a collector chat. TK has a collector chat.

Jaden might have a collector chat. And if he doesn't, he will. Jaden got all the chats. He got all the chats. Yeah, he's got a million.

Yeah. Um, but these moments become like, okay, instead of marketing to the entire internet and hoping, you know, you're fishing in a sea of a thousand, you might already have a a a little collection of people that you won't like it could sell out before you even before it even gets to Twitter or Instagram because of that value that you've created already, you know, and that marketing has now shifted to a core group of people that like what TK is doing with Pedal Power, they are now becoming a part of what you're doing as an artist. And that is like I don't even know what marketing from that looks like because it's unheard of. Like uh I only hear that with people like Taylor Swift, you know, as an example where her fans are really like mobbing for her and that's like rare in a web 2 world and not rare at all in web 3. Like these people want to support you.

They want to move with you and the marketing in that looks like whatever you want it to, which to me is really exciting and custom. And then on top of that, these marketing tools that we before would work so hard on to just put on Instagram now become viable art pieces that we can also sell to fund the bigger picture. And that to me is like when a marketing asset can equal an actual asset, it's, you know, not much else to say about it. For sure. Amazing answer.

Um, so we've been talking about all the great things about music NFTs and web 3. Uh, this next question is for Jaden. might be a tough one. Um, what are some of the potential challenges and risks associated with using web 3 and NFTTS? I think when a lot of people look at the web 3 space, um, specifically artists looking at dropping their collections or their art pieces as digital collectibles, they think that, you know, because we paint it out to be like we're all going to make it.

Everyone thinks that it's a fantasy land, right? People think that they can come in and they can drop a collection and make $10,000 under two minutes because they've seen the person to their left and the person in their right to do it, right? And I think one of the biggest challenges is a lot of creatives come into this space specifically for music with expectations, right? And expectations are very easily going to lead you to unhappiness, right? And when you come into the space, it's still a very difficult thing, right?

To grow your community, to get a fan base, to get people to spend money because they actually enjoy your art. It's not something that someone's just going to do with the snap of the finger, right? There's a lot of hard work. There's a lot of hours that go into this space if not more than the traditional senses when it comes to, you know, growing your music. So, I think one of the biggest challenges, right, that a lot of artists need to understand when entering the space, right, is that it's going to be a lot of hard work.

And I think these high expectations are honestly leading a lot of people to enter the space and then quickly pull themselves out, right? Because those expectations aren't being met. Um, so I think it's just our job to, you know, redefine what it means to actually be in the space, what it means to grow in the space. And I think we'll get there, right? you know, it's only been about two years since music in web 3s have really really been brewing.

Uh, but we're going to figure it out with uh with a lot of time. So, yeah, I think another kind of challenge is just the information and the education. There are a lot of people that want to get into web 3, but web 3 music, I should say, but there's a learning curve like learning uh about crypto, learning about wallets, learning about um owning your keys, right? Learning about security. And we've seen people kind of come into the web 3 space and get jaded because something went wrong.

they didn't know about gas fees, their wallet got hacked, they lost a lot of funds. And so I think it's important for us um that are already in the space to make sure that we're onboarding people effectively, making sure they have the right information, making sure they're buying an ENS as soon as they come into the space, things of that nature. And I think um we'll start to mitigate a lot of that risk when it comes to, you know, challenges and uh you know, kind of mistakes that other people can make. So that's a a great answer for sure. This one is for Tero.

I'm actually going to change the question cuz we didn't get to talk about this. Um, how does web 3 help when it comes to collaboration? Cuz we talk a lot about artists, but how can it change things for songwriters and producers, especially given how songwriters and producers are compensated in the traditional music industry? Yes, absolutely. This is honestly one of my favorite topics of discussion in the space being a songwriter and um you know being a part of that process in the traditional music industry of collecting your royalties and having your splits and you know pros and streaming royalties and really like I think what I've seen the most personally as an artist entering this space with collaborators who weren't cryptonative who didn't necessarily know anything about it was, you know, more exciting for my team of collaborators to be a part of something that felt uh more substantial, long-term, longlasting than just working tirelessly on a project, releasing that in web 2 and moving on because it doesn't perform the way you would like it to perform and you might not have the means, the necessities, the money, the the team, the whatever it may be, right?

And so in web 3, you're seeing this emergence of collaboration where you're renegotiating that relationship, right? It's less transactional. It's very much you are a part of something bigger. And with web3 technology, you're able to implement these revenue splits. This, you know, I work at Reveal a revenue share protocol as well.

And that's exactly what they're doing. They're providing tools for creatives um to manage their onchain revenue in a way that's streamlined, automatic, trustless. So if I have a song with two other songwriters, two producers, a mixing engineer, a mastering engineer, usually in the web two sense, you'd be paying out, okay, like work for hire, pay the mixing engineer a couple hundred bucks, give a couple points to the producers, split the songwriting royalties as so. Um, but now you're able to all be a part of a revenue share that can be, you know, forever on the blockchain and it's there. You're able to see exactly who's getting the shares, the um, agreements from the beginning.

That saves a lot of lawsuits in the future, you know, like it's just protecting yourself as a songwriter, as um, an artist. And I think that's the most important part about entering the space is being wary of that fact in itself because you don't want to repeat the same mistakes. It's so easy to lose track of revenue in web two music. So now there's an opportunity to do it right from the get-go with tech. But yeah, absolutely.

I think um that's a great answer. And more than anything, it's like getting paid immediately, right? And everything being transparent. I mean, a lot of songwriters and producers are used to waiting 3 months, 6 months, a year, two years um to make any money from songs that they produce that have done really, really well. And even after they actually make that money, doesn't really pay anything because of the way that label deals are set up, the way that uh, you know, streaming payouts are set up.

And then if they're with a distributor, they're probably, you know, losing another 20 to 30 40% um on that income as well. And so web 3 is lying for a lot of great stuff because I can work with the producer and not necessarily pay him upfront because he knows, hey, if we sell 50 editions at 0.1 ETH, you know what I mean? That's I don't know what, five ETH. uh don't judge my math, but you know, a lot of money right there.

And um that's more money than a lot of these uh uh producers are making in the traditional space right now. So, I love that. Um we got three minutes left, so we'll go into these final questions. Um just to kind of help people get involved in uh the space, what are some of the what are some of your favorite music NFT platforms and who do you think people should be collecting from or minting from? And that question is for everybody on the panel.

Everybody looked at me. All right. Um, the first thing that comes to mind, and this isn't exactly a music NFT platform, but I think it's something that is worth paying attention to right now is Web3 Social, right? As others alluded to before, there's different I think the most successful artists are not just releasing things at the same price point every time. You might have one of one records that are more expensive.

You might do additions on Sound XYZ or Decent or another one of these platforms. But there's also a lot of great content that you can collect, music, video content for free on um web3 social protocols like Lens. So I would definitely recommend exploring there. Um big fan of of Oo Laa and Spin Amp as well in terms of just the discoverability and you know finding music that you like because those platforms aggregate the best music from all of the different uh web 3 music platforms and provide a way for you to listen to them and collect them directly. So, um, yeah, I would say Web3 social is definitely worth paying attention to.

A lot of great artists on there, myself included. And, um, that's that's all I got. Yeah, I uh I definitely second that. Lens is incredible and has so many tools, especially for music. Um, I am a big fan, again, not exactly a music focused platform, but I'm a big fan of Manifold and the tools that they're using to be able to give independence and ownership to artists.

It allows you to go in and have ownership over your contract, do whatever you want with it, set it up however you want, integrate that however you want. Um, which has its own positives and negatives, I think. You don't have that same curation. And you don't have that same, you know, input in front of people, but you have complete ownership. You have complete customization and then you can reach people from there.

Yeah, for sure. Shout out sound, shout out catalog, shout out Zora, OpenC, uh, Decent, Reveal, Manifold, Lens, all great platforms for sure. So, we got one minute left. Um, I got to pick between these three questions. Let's go with this.

What excites you the most about the future of music in web 3? Any of you guys vibes, music videos? Uh, God, 45 seconds left. Um, no. Everything excites me.

I think the unknown excites me because there's so much work to be done and um the vibes obviously too, man. What what excites me is just having the opportunity to meet people when you're so early to something. You know what I'm saying? I'm fairly young. Uh, but I wish I was there and present when streaming platforms were first coming up and just connecting with so many people involved in building like the future of the music industry, right?

And I feel like we we have that right now. So, we just got to take advantage of it, you know? Yeah, for sure. And I'm excited about um thousands to millions to tens of millions to hundreds of millions of artists and creatives finding financial and creative freedom through web 3, being able to build their communities and their fan base without having to be Drake to make um you know a livable income for sure. I'm excited to see artists become their true and authentic selves.

And I'm also excited to see fans um build that relationship with these artists and start to benefit um in an omniirectional relationship just by being early with an artist, supporting them and just having good taste for sure. So, thank you guys all for being here. Thank you for coming. I hope you learned a lot. Thank you to all these incredible panelists.

Jaden, Taro, Domino, Alec. These are some of my best friends in the space and I'm glad they made it here. If you have any questions, feel free to ask us for sure. Obviously, please watch the recording on the E uh Ethereum Denver website when you get a chance. And um yeah, I'm hoping that all of you guys interact with music and web 3 in some way, shape, or form.

Collect the music NFT, support your favorite artists, and uh we will see you guys in the future. Thank you guys so much. Thanks y'all. Just go listen.