There we go, folks are here.
invite to speak, invite to speak.
Okay, that worked that worked that worked. We just email out.
Oh, ta-da! My mic would not unmute, and I was like, "This is gonna be a great Twitter space." Whenever the things are on tailholms, I'm inviting people to speak, invite to speak.
invitations. Jason, I thought you always kick us off with a special song yourself. I know. And I actually, I actually am like crazed because I didn't have time to think of a song for the music episode. I was like, are you embarrassed because we actually have incredible artists and musicians with us today. Yeah, I will not be singing.
in this room full of singers. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope#
Yeah, yeah, yeah, are reunion Okay, so we've got Sammy we've got Wow you got the being oh Yeah, just waiting for Natasha. I'm sure she'll be here soon
see and then all right well we can sign this out we can maybe start a little bit maybe like the first first bits and then send this out to some folks
Yeah, why don't you go ahead and dive in? OK, sounds good. Let's see. OK, hello. Welcome to the ninth episode of Nerd Out.
My name is Jason Michael Primrose, the author and creative director of LCOA 2052, my art literature and music in Fuse sci-fi universe that champions diversity, resilience and unleashing our inner potential. Born in Web 2, pioneering Web 3.
Hi everyone, my name is Tara Fung, I'm the co-founder and CEO here at Cocreate and we enable innovative brands and organizations to unlock the power of community utilizing the tools of Web3 and we're an API first platform that allows you to embed Web3 primitives into Web3.
of apps, mobile apps, all the fun stuff. And so super excited to be here today. This topic is near and dear to my heart because I don't think a lot of people know, but my husband's actually a session musician here in Nashville. And so I have a little bit of music cred by association, even though I am in no way a musician.
position myself. But Jason, why don't you introduce nerd out before we get any deeper. Gladly, gladly. So for those of you who are new to nerd out, welcome. This is our nerdy playground where we come together to build bridges between the old current internet and the next internet for our audience.
using curiosity, thoughtfulness, and connection as our driving forces. Be sure to retweet the space, tell your friends, especially to your musician brands or those interested in music and music in Web 3. Comp and ask questions and follow the hosts and guests to stay involved. And we have a special announcement at the end.
So yeah, okay, well and as you mentioned this is episode nine for Nerd Out, which is crazy We've been on this journey two months together and today we're gonna be discussing the money of music which my husband when I told him this was the topic he was like yeah, where is it? Yeah, I mean
me discussing where it is. But there definitely is money in music, which these folks today are amazing panelists will be able to share how the industry has been, how it's evolving, where it's going, inclusive of how musicians have made money in the past, what's changed, particularly with key technology
and how and whether Web 3 offers a different monetization path in the future. And we are so fortunate to have Powerhouse panelists with us today. We have Sammy Ariaga, a friend here in Nashville. He's a musician-singer songwriter.
founder of pixelated collection and the number two most collected artists on sound XYZ. Navine, who is another friend of mine, also here in Nashville, he's the co-founder of Tari Labs. A music industry veteran has worked with everyone from Lincoln Park to carry
I have a question I go to Navine, he knows everything and everyone. Phil Quest, he's an OG at CAA, one of the top agencies in the space, and he's been focused on Web 3, Metaverse Technology, Music and Media, as well as Justin Blau.
amazing DJ and musician as well as the founder of Royal.io and Latasha, an incredible musician and artist, founder of Zora Topia and head of community at Zora. Oh my goodness, I feel like you need to take a breath. There was so many people and they're all so incredible. Welcome everyone.
What's up? What's up? This is an incredible room. Wow. Bless to be here. Let's get some claps from the audience for these wonderful people. Okay. So we like to start off with an icebreaker, then we'll do introductions. So we're going to play a quick game of, would you rather? Would you rather
have an amazing singing voice or be able to play any instrument/produce any sound. I said produce any sound because not everybody plays instruments. So we'll start with Latasha. Would you rather have an amazing singing voice or be able to play any instrument/produce any sound?
Is AI a part of the instrumentation? Because if so, then I'm taking every instrument for sure because I could just AI my voice, I guess. Who I like that answer? Okay, that's clever. We got technology in there. Okay. Let's go to Sammy.
I think I'm gonna have to go with a singing voice, just singing good because whenever I sing it, like the way that I get my emotions out and the way that I guess, you know, convey my message to the world is through just the feeling of getting something out vocally and singing it out pretty much through a melody.
That's an amazing answer. Okay, let's go to, let's go to, let's go to fail. I'm curious to hear the nine music and answers. I would definitely say singing voice just because I'm so terrible at singing generally.
He's lying. He's an incredible rapper. How is staffed? You should have him do a freestyle on the space. Oh my god. We should definitely do freestyle.
my answer would also be voice
I think we need to change the show to like, nerd out, rap battle and do that one time. I think that would be so good. - Oh my god. - Naveen. Oh, I got bars too. Don't even try.
I think I'd just like to go to play every instrument. I don't have much interest in singing, but I think it'd be dope just to be able to pick up like some random instrument like, "Oh, this person has a fucking mandolin and I can just champ." I think that'd be great. I'd love to be able to do that.
Oh my god. That's an amazing answer. Terry, you want to go first? I would choose voice, but that's because my husband is one of those annoying people in the scene. He literally plays like every instrument. And so I got him as my sidekick. So if I had the voice, we would be full on band. There we go. Jason, what about you?
Okay, so I grew up like obsessed with Whitney Houston. I would have loved to be able to sing Whitney Houston. So it's just fine like singing like musical theater, Disney movies, like part of your part of this part of your world and yeah, all the all the songs I love singing. I sing
now even though I'm not that great. But so I would like I would want to have an amazing seeing voice for sure. K town karaoke is the best because you just sing with your friends and it doesn't matter if you don't sing well and you can go in so hard. So I hear you there. Well, now that we are all loose, I know we gave quick introductions for all of you.
But you have such deep experience and your backgrounds are more than we could say in a quick one liner. And so we'd love it for each of you to share and please keep it to two minutes or less because we got a lot of good content to go through. But just briefly introduce yourself and share what you're up to in Latasha. Why don't we start with you?
Sure, I also feel like that question was like a trick question. But I have been a musician for 10 years, been working on music for a very long time. The first five years, I honestly was thrown in the
the fire of being a musician. I didn't know I was going to go into being an artist at all. I thought I was going to go into journalism and writing plays and poetry. But the universe was like, nah, Shoddy, we're going to rap. I used to write a lot of plays about hip-hop and before I knew it,
I was doing the rap thing. I started with opening for like Kanye and Q-tip and Big Sean and all these really amazing artists at a very young part of my beginnings of my career.
I honestly did not know myself as an artist at that point. I didn't understand my my my artistry or even the music industry at all at that point. And so I was like take an advantage of and all the things the artists do in the beginnings of their journey. And then about five years ago, I decided to
I fully figure this thing out and become full on independent as much as I can be. So I've been an independent artist for the last five years. As Latasha did a lot of writing and publishing music and a lot of different sectors. I have a lot of music and strength.
My claim to fame is like being on a ton of Netflix shows through the song called Who I Am That Is Huge Right Now. And then found the web 3.3 in 2021 through the pandemic because I was really tired of waiting for my check. And I was like, how do I get direct to my
people and my partner was like, "Yo, you ever heard of crypto art?" And I was like, "Yeah." And if he was like, "Check this out. I think you could do it with your music." To be honest, I hated the web space in the beginning because I was just like, "What the hell is this? I'm gonna take my coffee right? They're gonna take all my things." And then when I
I was like wow there is a space for me as a musician in here. And so I've missed my first music video in February of 2021 and then kept going and became the first woman racker on blockchain and then the first to bring music video on blockchain.
and that capacity and before I knew it in the summer, I was making what a record deal would have given me with just my music, not giving my master away. Love it. I mean, this is the money of music. So we're going to get to a lot more of that. Navine, I will be so I love hearing your background because every single time I learn
new things. So let's hear what you can describe of yourself in two minutes. Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, I like to build things. I started my career in the music business. I dropped out from college and I
I built my first company, which is a company called SparkArt, and we started working with artists. The very first artist that we had the honor of supporting was Lincoln Park. We started working with them right around when Hybrid Theory came out. We ran their website and their fan club and their
and did some help them a bit with e-com and ran the little credit link of Park Underground with them and did all their digital marketing collaboration with Warner and learned a lot. It was a crazy time because that record is a hugely successful record.
It was my first experience being on a rocket ship and it was a lot of fun. We did a lot of really great work and as a result of that lots of other artists wanted to work with us too. So, I have the opportunity to work with many many other incredible iconic artists and support them on their journeys.
really just pioneered in lots of different ways. You know, I'm dating myself, but really helping artists think about how to use a platform like Facebook or how to use a platform like MP3.com back in the day or a platform like Myspace, how to connect with fans in any way, how to use
various different types of emerging technology. So an example is there was a period of time when DRM was all the rage and you know all the labels and everyone was all about oh we got to like limit what people can do if they buy a song, a license for a song and they download
on something like iTunes. Well, they can't put it on another device. You know, like you ought to limit it. So there was this whole period of time when DRM was like a really big deal. So I invented a product called Dr. M where we just essentially like, you know, used really unique and custom DRM license
configurations where you could send a file to a friend and after a certain number of people received the file it would unlock things like that. So really being very playful and having a lot of fun in the music business to help artists stand out and inventing new things along the way.
that artist could use on an exclusive basis and separate themselves from the pack. And then I started my next company, which is a logistic space, I bootstrap that to mid-7 figures and revenue. I bootstrap Sparkart to actually figures and revenue. Then started Angel Investing, some in Angel Investor
and some around 100 companies now have a lot of fun doing that and you know have had some success with that. And then YC alum from Winiforcee and then got into crypto in 2016 with a project called Manero and I just love privacy oriented things. I just think privacy is a basic human right. I think every human being should have
agency over their story, I think that we shouldn't be reducing humans to entries in a database. I think that's bullshit and I think it's a net negative for humanity and for society at large. So I believe very strongly that all of the stuff that we do in crypto needs to shift. We shouldn't be using these surveillance chains that we
all love and use today because everyone has bags. We should be doing things that are pro privacy oriented because we think I just think that's like a better outcome for all. And as a part of that, you know, I started a company called Tari Labs with my dear friend, Fluffy Pony, who's the former lead maintainer of Monero.
And we're working to advance privacy in the digital asset space. And we're also building what we call references and applications for Tari, one of which is called "Yat." "Yat" is a self-sovereign. We have other stuff in the
works. So that's my short background. Incredible. Yeah, I just want to jump in because this is so exciting. We want to invite everyone in the audience to invite at least three friends just send them to the DMs. No one's going to be mad at you. No one's going to
I can't believe you DM me this. They're gonna be like, thank you so much because these powerhouses like dropped all the knowledge. So yeah, please invite, please invite more friends. Let's blow this room up. Amazing. All right. Let's keep going then. Fill. Hi. So I
I ended up in the music business in almost a roundabout way. I started in finance, doing investment banking at Morgan Stanley and was ultimately going to go to business school but with the ultimate goal of coming out and helping artists and talent start their own businesses and funds. And so before doing that, I said where would be the
best place to go and build a network within entertainment and agency seemed like the best place to do that. So landed at CNA was only planning to be there for a year but long story short I've been there 11 years now and where a couple different hats one being a traditional music agent for
artists and helping them with their live shows, tours, festivals, etc. Justin is actually one of my longtime clients. So that was part of the banter earlier. And then the other hats I wear at the agency, I sit on the investment team for a
our venture fund to invest in early stage startups and then lastly, one of the folks leading our emerging tech efforts across the agency. So helping think through this strategy for CA as a whole but also our clients and how to enter and use emerging tech in the best ways possible for them.
Boss level Sammy let's keep it going What's going on y'all for those of you who don't know who I am my name is Sammy Ariaga if you could roll your Rs that's extra points I'm originally from Miami Florida and my whole family is actually from the island of Cuba my first language is
Spanish and was raised my childhood in a household where I only spoke Spanish with my parents and then English in school and with my friends. And I actually discovered country music at a I'd say maybe like 18 or 19 and that was the genre that you know gave me the courage
to pick up a guitar. I taught myself how to play on YouTube and use social media to kind of get the word out about my music and whatnot. And then sometime in 2011, I jumped into a car and moved to Nashville, been in music city now for about 12 years. And in 2017, I was working with
Sony Music Nashville on the artist side of things that a co venture deal with Sony ATV from New York as well on the songwriting side of things and you know shortly after that actually it fell through because it was just a weird change in regime that was like a president of Sony and you know they were just kind of prioritizing certain things
So thankfully, for those of you who know about the music industry and how it works with contracts and whatnot, I was actually let go by them and I was able to walk away and retain ownership of everything, my masters and everything involved. And since then, independently, I'm using all the tools like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube,
but not. I've been able to independently gain over 53 million streams across Spotify and Apple Music. And thanks thankfully, you know, using those tools, like TikTok and Instagram, I was able to spread the word about my stuff. But, you know, being a Hispanic and country music, you might think like how random is that combination?
you don't really hear that very often but you know thanks to Web 3 I was able to kind of bypass all the gatekeepers that for years told me that it was never going to work and you know since October 2021 until today we've currently surpassed 15,000 music and FT's minted and we surpassed
400 ETH in volume, both primary and secondary, all just from putting my phone on a yaddy cup in my apartment, singing into what's called Twitter spaces, and just taking risks and just try and out new things, and using Web3 Tech 2 pretty much take my music to the next level, and thankfully here we are
today with a music NFT family of over 1100 unique holders. And thankfully I can say that, you know, our community is the second most collected music artist on sound. And I couldn't have done that without all the listeners from all over the world that, you know, found me through spaces and, you know, and all the platforms that I've been on. So just thank
to be here and I'm really excited that you know a little song was able to inspire such a beautiful thing. I love yeah I love when you talked about that interview you did when you talked about like the kind of technology of tutorspaces and how that really helped things take off. I'm I'm kind of excited to see like Web 3 artists collapse and hopefully
not a different music industry but I feel like I don't know I haven't seen any like collaborations like how people used to cross over in different genres so I'm looking forward to that like maybe we have a little Sammy Audi Agra and Latasha remix happening on something or something you heard it here first folks
Let's just gonna have to switch the the beret off for the comment. I don't know if she's gonna do that. What's your fee for me to do that? That's a really high fee. That's a really high fee for the cowboy half. Oh my gosh. Don't worry. I'll get a diamond studded for you. I got you. Appreciate it.
All right, and Blao, let's have you round this out before we get to the heart of our questions.
Sure, I am known as Blaw with a 3. I put the 3 in my name when I was in college for SEO purposes because Blaw means blue and German. It is also the name of a popular sound company Blaw punked speaker company. So when I was in college, I just wanted people to be able to find me in the 3.
was a good way to do that. Little did I know that people would like my music when I uploaded it to YouTube and Facebook and SoundCloud and Phil on stage has been repping me at CA for many many years now. I guess I've been a touring musician now for 13 years since I was 19 years old which is kind of crazy.
It's more than a third of my life. And I love making dance music. It's the number one most favorite thing I love to do in the entire world. Next to crypto, if not even with everything, that happens in crypto land. I guess another fun fact or two other fun facts about
me. I did some really early music NFT related experiments in 2017 back when people hated NFTs because they were clogging up Ethereum with cryptokitties. One of the time I was really excited about the power of unique token identifiers and what that might mean for the music business