The Web3 industry has seen massive growth in recent years, from a niche that glimpsed the future of the Internet to a reality that builds that future with the brightest minds and creators.
The space has also received support from several influencers, absorbing big names from outside of Web3. One of those people is world-famous rapper and businessman Snoop Dogg and his son Cordell Broadus, also known as Champ Medici.
In particular, over the last year, Broadus and Snoop have been at the forefront of combining Web3 technologies such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the metaverse and blockchain with the music industry and its large community.
In November 2022, among many of their other Web3-related projects, Snoop Dogg and Billy Ray Cyrus united music communities across the genre spectrum as well as blockchain networks with a music nft drop.
“Snoop Dogg and Billy Ray Cyrus Are Releasing a Country Hip-Hop Single with New Animal Concerts nft Release”$ANML #nft #Bullish
Read more about this at @RaritySniperNFT https://t.co/SC4d5n2Pg4
— Animal concerts (@animalconcerts) April 5, 2022
Broadus has been an essential part of bringing his father’s legacy to life in this new era of digital innovation. Cointelegraph sat down with him to understand what goes into bringing a legacy artist and communities to the Web3 space.
He explained that in 2020 he learned about the metaverse and shortly after crypto.com approached his father. In the study, when collaborators mentioned digital assets and NFTs, he recalled that no one understood the concept well enough to take it seriously.
“I took it upon myself to really learn it so I could put it in a language that my father could understand, and not just my father, but the entire culture.”
Broadus said he wanted to be a “bridge” to bring people into this space so they could learn how to digitize their businesses and not rely solely on the methods of the past. He felt that many musicians did not realize the potential for their unreleased music to be, in some ways, equivalent to digital assets.
“People don’t care how big you are, they don’t want to see you just release your own nft. “They want to see you support the community.”
When it comes to Snoop himself, Broadus said his father had to trust his judgment. He recalled urging Snoop “for years” to recreate his first album, Doggystyle, which was released in 1993 on Death Row Records.
He explained that over time he believed that the idea of re-releasing music “just stuck in (Snoop’s) head, so when the (nft) idea came up, he was very receptive to it.”
However, this was something he and his team understood more clearly after launching a ai-dj-firm-acquired/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener nofollow”>pilot at OpenSea, where Broadus and his team launched 250 Snoop ethereum/0x37a03d4af1d7046d1126987b20117a0fdcbf6535/475″ target=”_blank” rel=”noopener nofollow”>songs and sold the roots and license to those songs.
1149 minted on 4/20
The price now rises with each new coin.
Come and get yours
Let Me Hit Somethin is just beginning https://t.co/YIBhFh5eOe
– Snoop Dogg (@SnoopDogg) April 21, 2023
Broadus and the team began by releasing 500 copies of the single “High” for $500 each.
“That first day we sold out and made $250,000 with that first single. From there it was the numbers, and the numbers don’t lie. Then we only did it for 30 days and on the last 30th day, in total we made $3.5 million,” she recalled.
Related: ai Can Be a ‘Creative Amplifier’: Grammys CEO Harvey Mason Jr.
Broadus explained how he witnessed many creators buying those songs and tracks and turning them into EDM and country songs.
“It was a cool way to see your community collaborate with traditional artists like Snoop at a reasonable price because, in a sense, we’re democratizing what collaboration looks like for musicians.”
He said that kind of collaboration and creativity wouldn’t have been possible without NFTs and called the experience “uplifting.”
“If I hadn’t understood this community and this space, that idea would never have gotten off the ground.”
This became even more true for Broadus when he attended nft NYC and the first-hand experienced musicians who purchased the nft song came from his pilot.
“Being able to be out in public in New York and hear five different artists show me their songs that they bought in our pilot and see how happy they were to be able to be on the song with Snoop and other Death Row. artists was huge for me. That’s what moved me the most.”
He also recalled a moment at a Sandbox event earlier this year where he was chatting with big “decision makers” at Web2 and Web3, and realized the importance of their efforts and presence in the space to his community at large. .
“I wanted to make it a priority and take charge of showing not only my father, but the entire culture and making sure they were in that room because there was no representation. He was probably one of the only black kids in that room and I wanted to make sure I could change that.”
Snoop, Broadus and the team behind their efforts in the space continued to build on this momentum with their latest venture announced on November 6, Death Row Games, named after the legendary Death Row Records that Snoop acquired in February 2022.
Death Row Games is building a new legacy, one that was built in part by the gaming-related teams’ presence in the Web3 space, including Snoop’s Snoopverse in the Sandbox metaverse and Dr. Bombay with Yuga Labs, among others.
He’s bringing the same lessons to gaming that he learned from bringing his and his father’s legacy to the Web3 space.
“It’s the same ideology and mentality in terms of bringing in diverse creators and telling stories from different parts of the world and minority communities.”
Magazine: BitCulture: Fine Arts in Solana, ai Music, Podcast + Book Reviews