What opportunities are there for musical artists and entertainers in the NFT space? Here to answer that are today’s guests, Jesse Dylan and Walter de Brouwer of Snowcrash. Snowcrash is a premier NFT trading platform that brings together diverse segments of technology, the creative arts, and digital innovation. Join Jeff Kelley, Eathan Janney, and Josh Kriger to discover how Snowcrash empowers incredible artists and partners with big brands and names to stretch what’s possible in art and entertainment. They share some exciting stuff they have in mind down the pipeline and their thoughts on the future of NFTs and Web3. Plus, your hosts chat with special guest Spottie Wifi on how he continues to push the boundaries of music and collaborations in Web3 as he teases a “Full Set” NFT collection.
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Jesse Dylan And Walter de Brouwer Of Snowcrash – Premier NFT Trading Platform Unifying Tech, Artists & Innovation, Plus: Spottie Wifi’s “Full Set” NFTs, And More…
This is Jesse Dylan and Walter De Brouwer of Snowcrash, a platform through which we empower artists like never before. We are here on the Edge of NFT, the show that is out to empower you to do the next big thing.
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NFT curious readers, stay tuned for this episode and find out how Snowcrash is empowering incredible artists and partnering with big brands and names like Bob Dylan and Miles Davis to stretch what’s possible in art and entertainment, how our guests bring together CCR, a donkey, and a passion for disobedience and disrespect in Quick Hitters, and finally how Spottie WiFi continues to push the boundaries of music and collaborations in Web3. All this and more on this episode.
Don’t forget that we put a little soiree called NFTLA that brought out thousands of the world’s most innovative doers in the NFT space. Head to 2023.NFTLA.live to get on the whitelist for tickets to our bigger, bolder, and better but also just as an intimate and impactful event happening in Los Angeles from March 20th to 23rd, 2023. See you there.
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This episode features Jesse Dylan and Walter De Brouwer, Founders of Snowcrash, a premier NFT trading platform that brings together diverse segments of technology, the creative arts, and digital innovation. Jesse is a prolific director and storyteller dedicated to telling the stories of some of the world’s most innovative individuals and organizations including Gucci, the Guggenheim, Taschen, Sony Music, Vogue, the Open Society Foundations, National Institutes of Health, Harvard Medical School, the Council of Foreign Relations, IBM, MIT Media Lab, Milken Institute, One, Sundance, the Getty, TED, and more. He is also the Founder and CEO of Wondros.
Walter is an adjunct professor at Stanford University and the Chief Scientific Officer of Sharecare, Inc. He was an early investor in Bitcoin, Civic, Tokensoft, and Havvn, now Synthetix, the derivatives liquidity protocol. His interests are financial engineering, decentralized finance, and nonfungible tokens. Snowcrash empowers artists, cultural icons, content creators, influencers, celebrities, and brands to access the untapped creative and economic potentials of NFTs by harnessing latent value in already created properties, and by designing new digital assets and virtual experiences. Jesse and Walter, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having us.
It’s a privilege.
It’s great to see you.
It has been great getting to know you with our partnership at Superchief and having you over to NFTLA to see what we’re doing there. I keep hearing all the amazing things you are doing. We were excited to finally have you on the show to unpack what’s going on in your world.
Talk about a powerhouse team. We gave a glimpse into your background. We tried to keep it as short as we could but we could go on forever because you are truly so accomplished individually. It piqued our interest because of all these things that you’ve done and all these amazing projects that you’ve brought together over time. Why did you decide to form Snowcrash? How did it all come together?
We have been friends for a very long time. I’ve been looking for something to work on together. Walter has been a longtime crypto investor and me to a much lesser extent. When NFTs came up, I was buying some NFTs here and there. I felt like there was a missing space, which was the space for the musical artists, film artists, and different artists to be able to express themselves.
There had to be a connective tissue between artists. They’re not all Spottie WiFi who can see what it’s going to be before anybody else or look around a corner. It required some connective tissue. I thought that we could play a role in this space between what a conventional artist does and how they become a Web3 artist. I asked Walter about it. Walter thought it was a good idea, so off we went.
All these intersections mean so many relationships have formed over the years in your individual pursuits. You have this additional powerhouse support from Sony Music and Universal Music. How did that come together as part of this entire venture?
Like everybody else, they’re struggling with what this new medium means for their artists. Until crypto winter came, it was projected that the last two quarters would be all about how we move traditional musical artists into NFTs. They’re looking for ways to be current with the people who are buying their musical artists. They want to be in the right place. Everybody struggles with Web3.
As much as a lot of the ways the Web3 works are a super modern thing, it’s also a very arcane system. It takes a long time to learn how to move things in the space and not just drop things out, which nobody is going to buy or want to be invested in because they haven’t integrated themselves into the collection of people who want to participate with tokens.
NFT Trading Platform: There was a missing space which was a space for different artists to be able to express themselves. There had to be a connective tissue between artists.
To a degree, it seems like a lot of the larger music groups are, in some cases, trying to hold onto some semblance of control based on the existing system that has been around for many years. By the same token, others are embracing different elements and trying to find a way to collaborate with artists because if they don’t, they’re in trouble. There are all these opportunities coming up where artists can become more independent in a decentralized way. It’s cool to see those guys stepping up and collaborating with you on this project.
Artists are not just about the record companies. Artists can write a book or make a movie. There are all sorts of things that don’t involve record companies. In Web3, they have the opportunity to be everything that they express themselves as in one place. You will start to see different versions of what it means to be an artist. Walter, what are your thoughts on that?
If you look at the hip-hop industry, everyone wants to be Kanye West because he has, in a very business-like fashion, increased his brand equity over sneakers and producing music but also beverages. It’s a whole line where he gave his brand almost. That brand then exploded. He was number three before because Jay-Z was number one. Now Dr. Dre and Rihanna have come up. Most of these artists start to think in Web3 that they are more than just musicians. They can do other things. They can sell paintings, make beverages, or put their equity in other parts of the industry.
I believe that if you’re a fan of an artist, you will probably not only buy his music but you’re also going to all the things that he did. As we see on the data from Amazon, people that buy a book from one author mostly buy 2 to 3 books. From the moment they buy two books, they will buy all his books. The same goes for artists. They have seen or captured the revenue that they can have, which does not belong to the publishers. The publishers have bought the end product of a creative process. They have not bought the creative process, which has more than music. I believe it’s a very good thing for them.
That lawsuit between Miramax and Quentin Tarantino falls out because they think they bought some of his creative processes.
That’s a little different because it’s the actual assets themselves. They think they bought the actual assets they paid him to make. There are a million different ways these things are going to shape out. The other thing is that you can now be invested in the artists themselves. The artists can decide that they want to do something. Private equity can invest in a musical artist, whereas up to now, they have never been able to have a vehicle to be able to do that in a fluid or liquid way.
For the publishers and all of them, they have a lot of illiquid assets that nothing is happening with and nothing is going to happen with. Web3 gives them the opportunity to launch these things in a new and different way. If you like Nat King Cole, you might like the jacket he was wearing or the things he had in the hotel room he was staying in 50 years ago. Those are things that can be invested in as people start to see the metaverse come alive.
The way that things will be interacting with it will be very different from the way it is now. That’s what NFTs are good for. They become the currency of the metaverse. If there’s going to be a metaverse, it’s going to need NFTs to give us ways to move around in it and be able to open and close doors, and get things for our avatars, and to get the avatars themselves to all these things that artists are going to play a huge role in.
Spottie WiFi who’s going to come on later is wearing his avatar right on the screen. Soon everybody will be able to do that. Everybody could do that now. As we move around inside the metaverse, we can have that as our persona. If we’re not feeling well, we might switch to a different persona. If we’re feeling confident, there’s a different one. We might want to wear different clothes.
You will see all this customization and opportunity for customization in the metaverse, which is the way that artists can move forward. You also see lots of other things move forward like architecture. It’s like, “Where would I want to put my will? I’ll put it in the metaverse or someplace. I’ll put the deeds to my house and the loan for my car.” All those things can be dealt with in a new way as the world opens up. Everything that’s in this world will be in the metaverse and other things as well.
You think about where artists were before. You had concert and concert merchandise. That now feels so constraining based on the unlimited creativity that’s available now with these converging technologies. NFTs are the lubricant of this creator economy. It sounds like you are having a lot of fun doing what you’re doing.
You are storytellers by trade. You’ve worked with a lot of brands on their stories. I want to learn more about your mission or your North Star when it comes to how you align around who you work with and how you work with folks. I would love to learn a little bit more about your mission and approach to working with this industry, the mission for Snowcrash and then how you work with folks.
The mission for Snowcrash is the same as my personal mission, which is to always work with things that are excellent. NFT has a lot of excellence in it. I’ve been collecting for maybe a year, but then in doing Snowcrash, we have spent 2021 getting to know a lot of people. We have launched on Ethereum, Solana, and Crypto.com. We have had different collections on each platform. You learn a lot by seeing the different ways that people approach problems. Walter has all the technical knowledge. Walter, what have your impressions been?
The broader mission and what excited me is tokenizing showbiz. Showbiz is the old world for what we now call the media and entertainment business industry, which is a $1 trillion industry by 2023. If you launch derivatives into that industry on the IP that they have, this is something enormous. You can tokenize everything. This will be a ten-year process. It’s like mobile. Everyone is now mobile. We think we are using apps, but 34% of the apps are still browser-based.
It takes a while for people to go through that funnel and make them change. The tokenization of that complete industry is enormous. Imagine that. In 1995, everyone suddenly needed an email address. Otherwise, you wouldn’t find a date. In 2000, everyone needed a website. Although the dot-com was all done, they quickly needed a website. In 2010 and 2007, they all needed an iPhone. Remember the queues for mobiles.
In 2010, they suddenly needed social media accounts and a Facebook page. In 2015, suddenly they needed wallets and currency. In 2025, they will need the metaverse. They will need a world that they can link up to all the other worlds. We’re not building a metaverse altogether. We are building metagalaxies. That’s why Microsoft and Facebook are completely wrong. I’m looking forward to them failing because their agendas are biased.
It’s an interesting battleground these days when it comes to the established players. I noticed internal conflicts in myself of being so excited about Google many years ago, “All the world’s information is accessible to everyone.” It’s like, “It’s just my information that is accessible to everyone.” It’s going to be interesting to see how things play out. There’s a lot of hope here. At least, hopefully, something special can come out of these transitions. Let’s talk a little bit more specifically about some of your recent projects with Snowcrash. Are there any cool examples that we could roll through a little bit? Jesse?
Birds of Sōlis is a project we’re super proud of with Varvara Alay who’s a crypto native artist from Russia. She came from Russia but she moved to Ukraine and Georgia. She’s a wonderful artist. We reached out to her very early on and then worked with her for about a year. We love the art. It’s beautiful art. That’s a pretty good collection.
How do you work with folks on projects like that? What’s the approach you take?
It’s different with each individual artist. On that particular one, I had an idea. She had done one little collection at that point. I reached out to her. She liked my idea, which was to combine the original Audubon print pictures and do her painting on top of them. She got excited about that. She was a great artist to work with.
We did Maxim, who’s the lead singer of The Prodigy. He had done these butterflies and had an idea about butterflies but he didn’t know what it meant to be a crypto-native artist in Web3 or what that meant. It took us a while to work together to figure out what that would mean for him. We sold out his first collection. He has done a couple of other NFT things very early on. We sold out a collection with him, which was powerful and good storytelling, which is going to continue with more storytelling down the road as we go down the roadmap further.
The artwork is pretty awesome too. The lore of it and the whole story are super creative and cool. It sounds like you agree on that.
He’s talented in music. He goes to a fair one day where he’s thinking of buying some paintings for his house. He looks at the paintings and says, “I can do that.” He was great at that too. He’s newer to art but he’s a great artist.
We’re seeing a lot of that. We were talking about Gerard Way from My Chemical Romance, Umbrella Academy, and all that fun stuff. It runs deep in your DNA, creativity, storytelling, and how you bring it all together. You have some cool projects coming up. You’ve got Miles Davis and one with your pops, Bob Dylan, and some exciting stuff. Tell us about what you’ve got there in the pipeline.
We’re going to drop some artwork from my dad later in 2022. Afterward, we will do a drop with the estate of Miles Davis, which we’re pretty proud of doing. There are lots more after that but it hasn’t crystallized yet.
It’s probably different for each artist. What do you think about the different elements of utility? You are reaching into a bunch of different areas here for each of these collections you already mentioned. For these forthcoming ones, what construct do you put together around utility? How do you flesh that out?
We hear so much about utility these days. Walter, what do you think about utility?
We’re now in the Wild West. The NFT is the minimal viable product. It’s a very buggy Winchester revolver where we are going to prove Manifest Destiny. We’re only doing JPEGs. Soon everything will become IP even the JPEGs will become H.264 and H.265 MP4s. That means that these things that we are going to sell will be updatable. We will be able to push more stuff into it. They will give us access to things that we want to buy. It’s access to experiences. For me, that’s the utility.
There’s a utility from the standpoint where we see different versions of the artwork and then there’s utility where we see that maybe there will be a game or something else. We’re in the very early stages of thinking about what utility means from a storytelling perspective. I would like to see it mean more things where it keeps the audience engaged in a story that’s ongoing.
We’re beginning to see stories that work out like that. We have a project which isn’t fully fleshed out with Avi Loeb who’s the Head Astronomer at Harvard. He saw an asteroid go through our planetary alignment. Everybody thought it had an irregular orbit. He thought that it could be a piece of alien junk technology. We have a project that’s exploring what is that. Is it alien junk technology? Is it just a rock floating through space?
NFT Trading Platform: You’ll see all this opportunity for customization in the metaverse, which is the way that artists can move forward.
There are lots of ways that you can imagine. You talk about utility. A piece of that rock went into the ocean off of Papua New Guinea. He’s going to be taking a boat over there to see whether he can drop it down and pull a piece of it up. My thought about utility is that everybody could own a little piece of the asteroid. A utility has many meanings as you can think up at the moment.
My girlfriend is telling me that there’s all this space junk floating around Earth from all these launches. They were showing some pictures of it. It’s pretty gnarly up there. We haven’t even gotten started with all these space adventures to come. It could get a little messy up there in outer space.
I’m planning on staying here. I don’t know about you guys.
I like California.
I could think of some people who should volunteer for the trip to Mars but I’m not going to be going myself.
I’m good here on Earth as well. Walter, you started to talk about programmable NFTs. There’s a conversation that the first NFT standards were fast-tracked. They had to get out there. We have learned a lot about what we need in an NFT standard, especially from a video perspective when you get into holograms and start thinking about converging technologies like machine learning and the Internet of Things. You’re the perfect person to put it on a futurist hat for the moment and give us a little sense of what your thoughts are on the future of NFTs and Web3.
Especially for our clients, Universal, Sony and Disney, we have to convert everything they did in Web1 and Web2 to Web3. That means a lot of codes, integration and media players, which are software-oriented. We have to think for them to write protocols. They stream music or movies but also with certain conditions in the sense that they can stream them but at the same time, can they download them or not? It’s rent or buy, plus those geographic restrictions where we have to see on the satellite coordinates where these streaming are going and coming from.
This becomes a more complicated thing. Also, I believe that the future of NFTs, primarily and especially in music, will bring three new big fields. One is the metaverse and gamification. The metaverse will be for the music world what MTV was in the ’80s. It was a destination part of our living room. We drank and looked a bit at it. Now, think about that same destination where you can see on your phone all the stuff immediately from that artist and what he wears.
When they see a rapper, my kids are always like, “What does he wear? Is it Dior? Let’s look it up. Is it his own brand?” You can do that. The metaverse will be enormous. Marc Andreessen said, “Software is eating the world.” Blockchain is authenticating the world. If you authenticate it, then you can put it into a virtual world, sell it, and own it because it must be persistent. It cannot be like Grand Theft Auto where you kill somebody, and this guy turns up again. You cannot buy a house, and then it disappears.
The theme I hear in your words is this integrated experience. In the past in Web2, you go to a concert, buy merch, shop online, and do things with your friends. What we’re talking about here is this concert of life. The brands, the things, the creators, and the people you love are all part of that concert.
NFT will probably have access to your wallet, which will have access to what we would now call a credit card. You will go to that concert. Everything you consume there will be part of that NFT that will do the invoicing and the accountancy of everything. It gives you proof of attendance of what you have all done. It will all be on that blockchain because the blockchain is the memory.
It’s useful to get your perspective on this. It resonates with a lot of what we’re seeing moving forward. There’s also a lot to be imagined. That leads me to ask this. What’s next for Snowcrash in your roadmap? What are you imagining? You’ve already cooked up some incredible things. What do you foresee in the next few years?
The metaverse is certainly something that we are heavily building at the moment for our clients. We’re just not building a world that we have to populate. We are building these worlds for our clients. We hope to connect these worlds to the world like the altar city-states of Greece. I believe also there will be new DSPs or Digital Service Providers. Now, 64% of the world uses social media for 142 minutes a day.
This is all like, “If you are not paying for the product, you are the product.” Certainly, the music world has an enormous following. If you look at Rihanna, she has millions and millions of followers. You look at rappers who have 100 million followers. From all these followers, they don’t even know who they are because their identity belongs to the network. If tomorrow they say something wrong, they might be canceled. They cannot monetize it, so they cannot grow.
Inside that metaverse, new identity communication and payment services will be very big. Let’s say that if tomorrow, one of the biggest rappers takes his 400 million followers and puts it on a platform that we made that would look a bit like Twitch but for musicians, and it would create some clubs on there, who wouldn’t want to belong to a club of Puff Daddy or now Love? The bragging rights would be enough to pay 10 SOL.
Access to experience is the utility. Click To Tweet
I believe that’s also a big part of the communication inside that metaverse. Thirdly, I believe what Web2 has done is it has destroyed music ownership. When I was young, we used to go to the record store. We bought a 45-rotation for a minute or a record. We kept it. We had twenty of them. We did our charts of the top twenty. We had an opening line come to my room listening to music.
All this doesn’t exist anymore. That’s not so long ago. That proved there is a market for the ownership of music. Blowin’ in the Wind was sold for $1.7 million at Christie’s. Imagine all these blue-chip musicians that will record songs that only one person can own but everyone can listen to. That’s new revenue. That will have to be discussed with the publishers. When there is money to be made, everyone sits around the table.
Walter, you’ve given some shout-outs to a number of different hip-hop artists and whatnot. I’m curious. Are you a hip-hop head? Have you got hip-hop in your blood over there?
I’m a numbers guy. The guys and the girls with the numbers are hip-hop artists.
Where are you drawing your inspiration from in this space these days? Are there any projects in Web3 and NFTs that you get jazzed about?
The AI Degen one is pretty good. Those are pretty funny. There are lots of great collections out there as many as you can imagine.
Walter, how about you?
I’m reading with my students The Network State, which is a book by Balaji. It’s a very good book. It’s one of the top books that I’ve read in a long time. Some people will probably have other opinions about it. It’s good to read an intellectual book that converges several things together. It’s not just about a JPEG of an ugly duck. This is more than just that. We came from paper. We moved from paper to digital. We made from digital to the internet and from the internet to blockchain. From blockchain, we will go to streaming. From streaming blockchain, we will go to the metaverse. This is all one big progression.
It all makes sense when you lay it out clearly, Walter. We appreciate all the background on Snowcrash. It’s so exciting. Readers, go check it out. There are so many ins and outs to it and many amazing projects that have come to fruition already. It sounds like this pipeline ahead is even more exciting. Keep an eye out there. We wanted to shift gears a little bit for segment two. It’s the segment we call Edge Quick Hitters where we try to get to know you a little bit better. We have ten set questions. We’re looking for short, single-word or few-word responses but we can dive in a little deeper where we would like. Would you want to jump in on these things? Are you ready?
Sure.
Let’s have some fun. Jesse, we will start with you. Question one, what is the first thing you remember ever purchasing in your life?
I bought a donkey.
We need to know more about this donkey.
It’s from my neighbor.
It’s a common thing. Most of our guests say they bought a donkey. We heard this story before.
NFT Trading Platform: The broader mission is tokenizing showbiz.
I was very young. I wanted a donkey. We had a neighbor. We went over. I don’t think I gave him any money but I got the donkey.
I don’t know exactly what you mean but I know that’s awesome. Walter, how about you?
When I was young, kids didn’t have purchasing power. Once I was 12 or 13, I remember buying my first record, Creedence Clearwater Revival, which in 1970 was bigger than the Beatles and Led Zeppelin for a while. I lived in Belgium. This was alien music from an alien country where everything was permitted and nothing was allowed. That’s what I remember.
It’s CCR and a donkey. This is the first-time appearance on the show for both. Question number two, Jesse, what is the first thing you remember ever selling in your life?
I had some Life Magazines that I sold to a neighbor. We had them. They wanted them, so we sold them.
Are you sure these were Life Magazines, Jesse?
Eathan is doing a throwback. We have one guest that cut out some images from another type of adult magazine and sold them as individual one-on-ones.
He didn’t even sell the whole magazine. He made more profit by selling the individual images.
I wasn’t that clever.
Walter, how about you?
I was probably like so many people in life. I was the best at selling myself.
You were selling your services. Question number three, Jesse, what is the most recent thing you purchased?
The most recent thing I purchased was the battery for my iPhone. It’s a portable battery from Apple, which is great.
Walter, how about you?
I buy a lot of stuff daily and junk electronics but one thing that I liked is I bought Starlink because if you are close to the coast in LA, the reception is not good. Starling works. I’m very happy.
That’s a shout-out to Starlink. Question number four, Jesse, what is the most recent thing you sold?
It would have to be the NFTs that we sold in Maxim’s collection.
Walter, how about you?
Robin Hood. It’s everything. Let’s get it over with.
Jesse, question five, what is your most prized possession?
Here’s my most prized possession besides my kids. What are the things I use the most? It’s probably my iPhone, my computer, and my iPad. That’s how I touch the world. They’re essential.
Walter, how about you?
It’s also my family but the rest of my family has to live for a long time on my crypto portfolio. Once we are out of the bear market followed by a recession, that would be good.
That’s a long-term view. Here’s question six. We will flip up the order here. Walter if you could buy anything in the world, digital, physical, service or experience that’s currently for sale, what would it be?
I have an exact answer for that. I have to do it together with my wife. I would like to buy a ticket to the Orient Express before it disappears, go to Venice in Hotel Danieli, and drink an Americano like The Tourist, the movie with Johnny Depp.
Walter, this is very achievable.
I have to convince my wife. Otherwise, there’s no romance.
Jesse?
I don’t want to go to the moon or any place like that. I would buy a couple of more weeks up here on the coast at Stinson Beach where I like it a lot.
Stinson is a beautiful place. Here’s a little tidbit for anybody reading. If you’ve never heard of it, Stinson is on point. That’s very cool. Question number seven, Walter, if you could pass on one of your personality traits to the next generation, what would it be?
NFT Trading Platform: The future of NFTs, especially in music, will bring three new big fields and one is the metaverse.
It’s probably disobedience. It’s a very healthy attitude and also disrespect for anything that is overpoweringly big, and nonlinearity or nonlinear thinking and these things.
If we’re talking about quotable moments, we just hit one of those.
When you have kids passing on disrespect, it can get a little bit out of hand.
They’re born with it.
Jesse, how about you?
It’s critical thinking. We don’t have enough of it these days.
Question eight, Walter, if you could eliminate one of your personality traits from the next generation, what would that be?
It’s vanity probably. It always gets you in trouble, and also too much talking.
It’s those combined. Jesse. How about you?
It’s anger. I want to have less anger out there.
I get that, especially these days. Question number nine, what did you do before joining us on the show? Walter, let’s start with you.
I had a meeting with Jesse.
Was it a fun topic? What were you chatting about?
It was the meat and potatoes of the thing.
That’s where both of you were. What’s coming up next, Walter?
If you are not paying for the product, you are the product. Click To Tweet
I’m going to join my wife next to the swimming pool.
How about you, Jesse?
I’m going to lunch with my kids.
Those are nice next steps for you guys. Those are the ten questions. That’s Edge Quick Hitters. Thanks so much for sharing with us. We appreciate it. Eathan, the word is we’ve got a special hot topic in the boat here. What’s the scoop?
We’re bringing on a special guest for this one, which we can chat with. Spottie WiFi is our special guest as Jesse mentioned a few times. He’s always on the move deepening the fabric of Web3 and NFTs with his work. He has a set of hot topics to discuss. We have him here on the show to do so. We had a great chat with him beforehand. Spottie, say hi. Welcome.
I’m enjoying the conversation. It’s my pleasure to be joining you all.
It is so good to see you. The last time we were together was live and in person at NFTLA. You rocked the stage and hung out. It was one of the more talked about moments of the event. We appreciate having you on. You’ve got a lot cooking. What’s shaking here with this Full Set NFT collection coming up? What’s the scoop?
First off, thank you, guys. I had a blast at NFTLA. That was a beautiful production, the stage and everything. It was awesome. Since then, I’ve been busy working on this new album. The latest single is called Full Set. The original version of the song is produced by Illa Da Producer, a multi-platinum Grammy-nominated producer. He’s now the Head of Community and Partnerships for the Bored Ape Yacht Club, which is a wild turn of events because the song is about having a full set of Apes and how that is the digital flex of the moment. It’s pretty awesome how that all worked out.
We released a remix of the song, which is the 8-Bit Edition. That features Champ Medici and We$ Side West from Death Row Records. That’s going to be the new NFT collection that I’m dropping. There are 27 different versions of the song. It’s a blind mint. You don’t know which version you’re getting but you do know that whatever version you get, you’re going to have a copyright license to use the instrumental and my vocals. The original version is produced by Illa Da Producer. If you’re an artist out there, you could have an instrumental from a multi-platinum Grammy nominee.
Can you explain to our readers who are not familiar what an 8-Bit version would be like? What makes it 8-Bit?
We take the original version of the song produced by Illa and replace all the instruments with Nintendo sounds. It’s all the same notes and chords. It will feel very familiar to you if you hear one version versus if you hear another version but it’s a different vibe. In this particular collection, we did feature some different guest artists and rappers on the different remixes of the song.
Spottie, can you play us a little of it?
We can play some. I don’t have the means to play it now. It did drop if you search me on any of the streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, TIDAL, and YouTube. It’s also my pinned tweet.
Which version are we going to hear? There are 27 different versions.
Only three of the versions are available on all streaming platforms. Twenty-four versions are hybrids. There are elements and instruments from the original three versions, and mix and mash them up.
NFT Trading Platform: Software is eating the world, blockchain is authenticating the world. If you authenticate it, then you can put it into a virtual world and sell it and own it.
If I get one, can I put it out there with the other three?
You can. You don’t have access to my Spotify account and my Apple Music account but if you own the NFT, you can put it on your Spotify artist profile. You could even remix it. If you hop in my Discord, you verify you have the token. I’ll send you the corresponding stem so that you can do whatever you want with it. You can put it in your film. You can use it in the Edge of NFT podcast.
It’s a great copyright license to me. We’re innovating and giving the holder a utility. I still own my masters and my publishing. Jesse, if you use one of my songs in your next smash blockbuster, and then when that airs on broadcast or something like that, I still have a performance royalty. That’s something that I’m proud of in terms of how we try to structure my drops.
Spottie, there’s so much I’m proud of about this. You pushed the boundaries before. Now, you’re pushing the boundaries in every single direction known to man. This is exactly what we were talking about on this show with these guys. This is so cool. We went through the process of getting permission for the song that we’re using. This makes it so much easier for people to co-own and co-create with you. You’re doing all these great collabs. Jesse, what do you think your father would think about all this?
This wouldn’t be up his alley probably. I don’t think he would think about publishing anyways. He doesn’t think of it that way but it’s interesting. Spottie, did you write 27 different versions of the song lyrically?
No. Generally, we have done this type of drop before. The vocals have been the same on all of the different versions. It’s the music that’s changing. For this particular drop, I teamed up with others so that we have one art. They’re all represented by Bored Apes. Some are my Bored Apes. Some are their Bored Apes. One of them, Gold-Rilla, is featured on one out of the three main versions. I’ve got the Death Row guys, Champ Medici and We$ Side West on the 8-Bit version. Another one of my Apes, Sergeant Simmie, is on the dance hall version.
You only collaborate with Bored Apes.
This song is very Bored Ape-themed. I performed at The8fest in New York City. It has been Ape season. My whole new album has a lot of different types of collabs. The first single was All Time High featuring Bun B, the legendary rapper out of Houston. We have teased that we have a song that’s going to be on the album with Jim Jones from the Dipset. There are a lot of other mainstream artists but I still wanted to pay homage to my Web3 routes and the Yacht Club.
Did you collaborate in the same room? Did you send them the song and they sent it back to you? How did it work?
It depends on the specific collab. Some collabs have been in the same room. Bun B was remote. We were emailing back and forth. It’s the same with Jim Jones. It’s interesting because I met those two guys for the first time, minutes before we performed together. It’s fun. It’s cool that I’ve had that experience because a lot of times, people are collaborating and they might never meet that artist. I’ve been fortunate because those guys are interested in Web3. Here’s a shout-out to Jim Jones at NFTLA. We had a panel together. After the panel, I told him, “I have a song for you.” We exchanged numbers. That was the catalyst or the spark that led to that collab.
I’m spotlighting Spottie WiFi’s video here. He is wearing an NFTLA shirt. He did claim before the episode started, “I didn’t realize that. It’s a very comfortable shirt.” Whether you want to represent or you want a comfortable shirt, look out for NFTLA swag.
I can’t wait to figure out what we can cook up in 2023, Spottie. This is getting the juices flowing. We talked about the album and some of the other stuff you’re doing. You also have a comic book coming out.
We don’t have a date for that but I’m putting the finishing touches on it. I’ll call it 85% or 90% done. The comic book is telling the story visually and through texts of Spottie crossing over from the metaverse into the real world. My first album in August of 2021 put me on the map in terms of having a successful music NFT project. That was a concept album where I’m telling Spottie’s story from the metaverse. It’s Spottie talking about living in the metaverse. The new album is musically the reflection of real life but also the comic book telling that story.
You have a metaverse personality that somehow crossed over into the real world. We tell stories in the comic book using music and some incredible artists. I’m super excited once we can start sharing some of the different collaborators that we have on it. It’s going to be cool. I pride myself on the comic book front. I wrote the theme song for the PUNKS Comic from Pixel Vault, which is a lucrative comic book publisher in the NFT world so far. I’ve done other stuff. My art has been in some of their comic books and things like that.
Did you do the art in the comic book yourself? Did you collaborate with an artist?
When there is money to be made, everyone sits around the table. Click To Tweet
We’re going to announce the artists soon because we have one main artist who did the primary cover and all of the interior pages. We have a handful of other artists that came in.
Is there anything else you want to shout out before we roll out on your segment, Spottie?
The only thing I was going to shout out is the new drop, Full Set. It will be a free claim if you own one of my drops from 2021, either the I’m Spottie collection or the All Time High collection. Now is a great time to check me out. Stay tuned for more announcements coming soon.
I would love to catch up with you afterward, Spottie. It sounds like you’re doing some cool stuff. Maybe we could do something together.
I would love that. Thank you. I love what you are doing as well.
We’re trying to get over to Solana.
Let’s talk about it. I’ve been looking into it. I had some conversations with Magic Eden but I like what you’re doing.
We will hook up with the DeGods or something.
We will see. For now, everybody at home can check me out at SpottieWiFi.io. I’m @SpottieWiFi on all the social handles and everything like that.
After I pick up one of Spottie’s NFTs, I’m going to be Spottie WiFi but not with the IE. It’s going to be with the Y.
We might have a new co-host for the show. Jesse is super inquisitive. He has lots of great questions. We have to have him back.
There’s collab potential there 100%. We have to shake off the cobwebs from NFTLA. This is the reminder that there’s more to come here for sure. That’s how it happens. It’s getting the community together, talking shop, and being creative. NFTLA was a manifestation of that. This is not the first show that has resulted in a collab and it won’t be the last. That’s the beauty of this space. It’s so awesome to have all of you on the show.
Thank you for having us.
Thanks for joining us. We appreciate it. We will be in touch soon about NFTLA 2023. There are lots of good things forming. We’re so glad you had a good time in 2021.
It’s my pleasure. Thank you, guys.
NFT Trading Platform: Web2 has destroyed the ownership of music.
Eathan, we’ve got some fan love to give out. What do you say?
We’re getting back into the swing of that. It’s a little segment where we reach out to someone in the community we see engaging, interacting, and doing some cool stuff. Our shout-out is to Jason Ludman of DotConnector. Jason is the Founder of DotConnector NFT. It’s a collective that is pioneering art, music, nightlife, and Web3 culture in the beautiful NYC area. DotConnector is bringing underground culture with mainstream entertainment through innovative and interactive IRL gatherings, galleries, and functions.
We see a lot of activity on the socials there from Jason. Thanks for always showing the show love in real life and on the socials as well as being an ally during this time of community building. If you want to find out more, you can check him out @DotConnector on Instagram and Twitter. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed if you dive a little bit deeper into that rabbit hole.
Thanks, Jason.
Big love for Jason. We always appreciate the support. Before we let our readers go on this amazing episode, what we wanted to do is make sure, Jessie and Walter, that these readers know where to follow you and all the projects you’re working on with Snowcrash and everything. Where should we direct them?
It’s Walter and Jesse at Snowcrash.com. Web3 is fully transparent.
How about anything on social? Are you active on social?
It’s @SnowcrashNFT on Twitter.
Go check it out. That’s exciting stuff. Follow them. We are going to be doing a giveaway for Birds of Sōlis. Keep an eye out on our socials for that. We will get you all the details and run a fun little contest so you can win a Birds of Sōlis NFT. That’s exciting as well and very generous of you. We appreciate that.
We have reached the outer limit at the show. Thank you for exploring with us. We got space for more adventures on this starship, so invite your friends and recruit some cool strangers that will make this journey all so much better. How? Go to Spotify or iTunes, rate us and say something awesome. Go to EdgeOfNFT.com to dive further down the rabbit hole. Also, look us up on all social platforms by typing EdgeOfNFT and start a fun conversation with us online. Lastly, be sure to tune in next time for more great NFT content. Thanks again for sharing this time with us.
Important Links
- Snowcrash
- Spottie WiFi
- 2023.NFTLA.live
- Wondros
- Sharecare, Inc
- Superchief
- NFTLA
- Ethereum
- Solana
- Crypto.com
- Birds of Sōlis
- The Prodigy
- AI Degen
- The Network State
- Bored Ape Yacht Club
- Death Row Records
- Discord – Spottie WiFi
- The8fest
- PUNKS Comic
- I’m Spottie
- All Time High
- Magic Eden
- DeGods
- @SpottieWiFi – Twitter
- @DotConnector – Instagram
- Twitter – DotConnector NFT
- @SnowcrashNFT – Twitter
- Spotify – Edge of NFT
- iTunes – Edge of NFT
About Jesse Dylan
Jesse Dylan is the founder and CEO of Wondros and the co-founder of Snowcrash.
Dylan has directed acclaimed feature films, documentaries, music videos, and advertisements. He’s behind some of the most successful campaigns in commercial television, print, and interactive advertising. In 2016, he started working for the National Institutes of Health All of Us research program, creating and launching campaigns to enroll one million Americans as partners in revolutionizing personalized medicine. He also created a narrative strategy for the Biden Cancer campaign #cancerFIERCE, that connects cancer communities to the resources they need. In 2008, he directed the Emmy Award-winning Obama viral campaign “Yes We Can.” In 2012, he directed the Black Keys music video “Lonely Boy.”
About Walter de Brouwer
I am the Chief Scientific Officer at Sharecare which went public on NASDAQ [SHCR] in 2021 after having merged with doc.ai, a Deep Learning company building AI-assembly lines for the healthcare industry. I run Glasgow3 LLC, a venture fund that invests in decentralizing technologies and am a general partner in the venture capital holding Emerald+.
I hold a Ph.D. in Computational Semiotics from the Catholic University of Tilburg (the Netherlands) and am the adjunct professor at Stanford University School of Medicine (CERC). I am the Chair of the IEEE-SA IC19-004-01 – Synthetic Control Arms with RWD -and a member of the American Mathematical Society.
My current interests are in Crypto-economies, MetaVerse, TinyML, DeFi, 6G and Micro-satellite constellations.
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