Rapper Ice Cube is planning to use non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to rebuild the way music is produced and distributed.
“I’ve had to go through the system my whole career,” the acclaimed musician and producer told crypto industry news outlet Decrypt on April 8. “What keeps me up at night is the things that we don’t get made — the good projects that we don’t get financed.”
The founding member of NWA and a producer of the seminal rap album “Straight Outta Compton” has worked on projects ranging from music to film and TV and is currently creating a three-on-three basketball league called BIG3 with former NBA stars — 10-time All-Star Clyde “the Glide” Drexler is commissioner — and international players that he hopes will disrupt professional basketball.
See also: PYMNTS NFT Series: What Are NFTs and Why Are They Crypto’s Newest ‘Next Big Thing?
Now he sees NFTs — the unique and unforgeable cryptocurrency tokens that hold media like art, music and video — as a way to do the same to the music industry.
“It’s the ultimate <expletive deleted> to the mainstream programmers of the world, and it gives the power to the people,” he said.
Related: PYMNTS NFT Series: NFTs Used by Artists to Create Musical ‘Middle Class’
Pointing out that those labels have not only had most of the control, but also most of the profits, Ice Cube said, “I love the fact that now you’ve got studio execs pulling their hair out because creative people are gonna be going to the crypto world, you know what I’m saying? Going to the NFT world, blockchains.”
He also pointed to the decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), which are smart-contract-controlled governing systems used by decentralized finance (DeFi) to manage DeFi without centralized human managers.
“It’s just gonna be great for creators, and great for people who love good entertainment,” he said.
Studios Interested, Too
Of course, mainstream studios are perfectly aware of the risks and potential that the tokens hold.
Both Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group have opened up outposts in the virtual reality of blockchain-based metaverses, albeit with somewhat vague plans to support and market their artists. Live event concerts in various metaverses have also drawn millions of fans.
Read more: PYMNTS Metaverse Series: Warner Music Group Brings Venue, Theme Park to The Sandbox
Still, NFTs are a medium that have been drawing recording artists since they began breaking out of the core crypto world in 2021. Kings of Leon dropped an album with NFT versions available in March 2021 — the very beginning of NFTs growth into a phenomenon — without huge success, but they were probably a little too early.
On the technology side, NFTs have a number of very attractive features to the music industry, starting with the inability to be forged. That’s not to say the music can’t be copied, but it cannot lay any claim to legitimacy as provenance can be verified on the blockchain — and transactions can be traced from one digital wallet to another.
Beyond that, NFTs used for art and avatar artwork are already using a feature of NFTs that can build in the ability to collect and transmit a royalty to the original creator after any resale.
Know the Game
As for Ice Cube, he said he’s still learning the ins and out of the broader crypto market. As he’s only dabbled with buying digital assets, he said, “I want to learn the whole game before I dive in feet first. You’ve got to respect anything you get into or you will get hurt.”
But he’s got some good resources. Another one of his projects is a West Coast rap supergroup called Mount Rushmore that includes Snoop Dogg, who’s been an early adopter and user of both NFTs and metaverse projects.
“When I get into an industry, I want to know it, understand it, and recognize what’s good about it and what’s bad,” Ice Cube said. “And then go from what I know.”
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