Time for Hiphop to Get on the Blockchain

And it’s time for you to join up.

This week, eMusic will present our Blockchain Project to the largest hip-hop conference in the world, sharing space with Wu Tang Clan, Lil Wayne, and so many other creative geniuses that have built long careers on smart branding, endless talent, and innovation. Hip-hop’s rich history of entrepreneurship has led to constant innovation in the community, all of which blockchain is perfectly built for. The story has been well told in countless documentaries and books about how this international, billion-dollar genre first emerged from dance parties in the Bronx, or perhaps even further back, as Quincy Jones told Kendrick Lamar, but always a tradition steeped in lightning flashes of creativity. After all these years, hip-hop survives because, more than any other music community, the community loves the smell of something fresh. Seeing as blockchain is emerging as a new player in almost every industry, with everyone from Bill Clinton to Steve Wozniak to Walmart singing its praises, we are excited to bring eMusic’s own blockchain platform to the community we feel will most ferociously embrace it.

Last week, Chicago rapper Noname released her debut album Room 25. It’s a great album and everyone should listen to it, although I might be biased: I’ve been watching Noname’s career since she was still Noname Gypsy, guesting spots on tracks by Mick Jenkins, Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment, and Chance the Rapper’s second mixtape Acid Rap.

So what Room 25 so innovative? Noname tells you right in the first track:

Maybe this the album you listen to in your car
When you driving home late at night
Really questioning every god, religion, Kanye, bitches
Maybe this is the entrance before you get to the river

It’s an opportunity for her to question the meaning of music, her place in the world, and to gloriously, musically proclaim, “Nah this one’s for me.” That line really gets to the heart of what this album is about, and one of the facts about this album that makes it really special: it is the first album by a major artist released using Spotify’s new direct upload service, whereby unsigned artists are allowed to upload their music directly to Spotify without a label or a distribution service such as TuneCore or CDBaby.

This is great news for Noname, and all artists who hope to get involved in the next wave of digital music, and as a deal its reportedly very generous: control of their uploads, complete control of their masters, better cut of the money. There are only a few problems artists will surely find with Spotify’s new process:

• It’s not available to everyone. Unlike Soundcloud, the direct upload portion of the business is not open to everyone. Spotify says that, for now, it will only be available to artists on an invite basis, with no word about who will be invited and when or if they plan to make the program more widely available.
• It’s a closed system. Any artist knows that to get noticed in todays’ digital music landscape, you have to be everywhere. Spotify’s direct upload system maybe gets you a better deal on Spotify, but it has no effect on the profits you make elsewhere. Some might speculate that this is Spotify’s incentive to get artists to keep their music exclusively with them, but the better deal has not kept her from releasing the entire album for free on Soundcloud.
• It’s only for listening. Spotify is a great service, but one weakness it has as a platform is that it is not built for community. You can’t make track comments the way you can on Soundcloud and tracks are notoriously hard to embed in blogs (which is the reason I embedded a Soundcloud link above as opposed to Spotify).
• It’s likely to cause friction between artists and labels. Billboard reported in June that Spotify had been cautioning its new roster of artists against saying they’d “signed” with Spotify, most likely to avoid any uncomfortable conflicts with the labels they so dearly need to continue their business.

One other major reason Spotify might be making this move is, as Music Business Worldwide reports, they will be out-of-contract with all three major labels in about a year. Undoubtedly, 2019 will be a volcano of change for the industry.

So this is a perfect time for hiphop artists, and artists of all kinds, to get equipped with the eMusic blockchain project. The eMusic for Artists platform is the first of its kind, ensuring all participants will maintain rights and profits from their music. Blockchain eliminates all the third parties taking a cut of your money. The extra value is shared between you and the music services that promote your music. As we’ve made clear in our Whitepaper, eMusic has remained independent from major labels for years, so the new platform will have built-in connections to all major streaming platforms, as well as the option for downloading, which means that artists living the hiphop hustle will have every opportunity to appear everywhere. As blockchain continues to change and innovate with the times, the possibilities for collaboration are endless. Creating a digital asset out of music on the blockchain means that collaboration, remixes, royalty payments, and distribution can all be managed from one platform. As our Head of Product Matt Robinson puts it, “Every Emcee needs a DJ. A smart contract can easily put them in touch with each other and get them each paid.”

Our community of rabid music fans continues to grow on Telegram and Reddit, which is perfect for young artists just starting to build a following, and although we may invite specific artists for beta testing, we intend to leave the platform open for benefit of the community as a whole. Join us now in the new world we’re creating for artists and fans.