Building a sustainable career as an independent musician is no easy task. Competition is fierce, support is hard to find, and making a living without the financial assistance of a major record company is an uphill battle. However, for those who are able to build a loyal fan base, the freedom of complete creative control can be liberating.
Technology has long proven to be a potential friend for musicians willing to embrace it, and non-fungible tokens are the latest innovation that many tech-savvy artists have begun incorporating into their careers. But NFTs remain controversial and experimental, especially among the mainstream, while music NFTs remain relatively niche.
American singer Vérité is an artist who has cracked the secret to maintaining a successful career as an independent musician, earning hundreds of millions without the support of a record label since the release of her first single “Strange Enough” in 2014 views.
After achieving success and touring internationally, Vérité became one of the first musicians to try NFTs in February 2021. Since then, she has built a strong Web3 community and has had several successful high-profile launches, including issuing a 1/1 NFT, selling the rights to her music, splitting song royalties on the blockchain, and contributing to concerts Participants provide NFTs. She did all this while still retaining her loyal non-Web3 fans, many of whom have little to no interest in cryptocurrencies.
How does one walk this path and successfully integrate Web3 into their career without alienating their existing, perhaps skeptical, fans? Magazine sat down with Vérité to find out.
Don’t rely too much on Web3
For many musicians, Web3 is an exciting frontier, filled with new possibilities for fan engagement and revenue generation. However, Vérité believes it is important for artists to have diversified revenue streams and marketing strategies and not fall into the trap of assuming that the hype surrounding anything, especially NFTs, will last forever.
Vérité told the magazine that building a music career in Web3 is “a double-edged sword.” While it can help bring people together, “it becomes a problem when artists limit themselves to only using these tools and only existing within these communities without really foreseeing that the hype cycle then breaks and these monetization paths close.” a negative impact.”
“My focus is, ‘How do I build a career that can withstand trend cycles, be able to refocus on the fundamentals of my career while trying to push toward building a better career?’ Because we recognize that a lot of these systems have damaged severely.”
Protect and respect fans
According to Vérité, not every fan wants to join their favorite artist on their Web3 journey, and that’s okay. When she first started releasing NFTs, she emphasized that she was just experimenting with the technology. “I’m very, very clear that I don’t care if you do this experiment with me — it’s an experiment for me,” she said.
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Vérité actually went a step further and actively encouraged fans not to join her bandwagon. “A lot of my communication with them is, ‘Don’t buy this. Don’t participate unless you’re fully educated and willing to fully educate yourself and take risks.'” Even now, she still tells her fans that they never You should feel no pressure to get involved in anything Web3 related.
“It’s not just monetization, it’s actually protecting the people who have supported my career over the past eight years,” Vérité stressed.
Clearly, not everyone is convinced of the power and potential of blockchain. The bear market certainly didn’t help the sector’s reputation, with the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX making mainstream media headlines and even the price of blue-chip NFTs plummeting 95% from their bull market peaks.
“If you go on my Discord, I’ll tag everyone and say, ‘What do you think about cryptocurrencies and NFTs?’ — people aren’t excited. Most of them, to be honest. It’s just a general disinterest. Interest,” explains Vérité. But her fans don’t necessarily hate cryptocurrencies. “I find that people are reluctant to do new things because they don’t see the problem, right?”
The singer says, “NFTs, Web3, and the way they’re marketed to the masses are also completely unacceptable to non-tech-native fans.” Instead, she offers the following advice:
“I would recommend people think of it more as an exploitation tool because it’s a weird market and it’s hard to justify some of the scams and negative effects that might come to people who don’t understand or are educated about these things. People cause real harm.”
Offer an option, not a requirement
Rather than forcing fans to join her chain, Vérité focuses on building experiences using existing but optional Web3 elements. She describes her approach as providing fans with a “door” in that can unlock blockchain capabilities to further enhance the fan experience – but whether fans open the door or not, they can still enjoy the experience:
“You need to jump through technical barriers to gain experience, right? Or is it just a door? If it’s a door, you can talk about it because it’s not a burden.”
“For me, it’s really about, ‘What is the experience we are delivering, what are the practical use cases for blockchain technology that we can adopt?’” she said.
One example is “The Vérité Crewneck,” a technical sweatshirt that the singer will launch in late 2022 in partnership with IYK, a company that works with brands, artists, and creators to develop physical experiences. The sweatshirt has a near-field communication (NFC) chip embedded in the sleeve, which can be scanned to access exclusive content and unlock an NFT representing a certificate of authenticity.
Vérité explains that fans who purchase the sweatshirt receive “preferred access to my next album.” Buyers can scan the chip with their phone and get early access to perks like music and behind-the-scenes content. “That’s the main value proposition – not Web3 activation, right?”
But the landing page also offers an option to verify the apparel, through which curious fans can receive their NFTs.
Fans are the center of everything
From outright telling fans not to buy her NFTs to offering them a Web3 option as an added bonus to the experience, Vérité’s fan-centric approach has certainly played a role in her ability to push boundaries and succeed in Web3. Maintain a loyal non-Web3 fan base. Or, in her words, “My fans come first, and I don’t have fans just to keep selling stuff to them.”
Regarding her long-term hopes for blockchain and the future of music, Vérité said her vision is that “we can demystify the black box of data that exists between artists and their fans, which is held by social platforms, ticketing companies, etc. , blockchain actually does have the ability to make information transparent so that artists can communicate directly with the people who support them and reward them in the long term.”
If the hype is to be believed, this dream may one day come true. But based on Vérité’s experience at the forefront of it all, it seems the only way the music Web3 revolution will truly succeed is by putting fans at its center.
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