Snoop Dogg’s enthusiasm about the Web 3 space is not limited to the new album; he recently announced that he was turning his label Death Row Records into an NFT label. According to Snoop, community building and giving back to the fans are at the heart of this decision. In his words, “For all of my career, we have made music and charged the fans for everything from tickets to merch, and they could only enjoy the music in return, but now they can own a part of it, trade it and make money off of it.” The Death Row Session NFT drop may not have been the highest grossing NFT drop ever, but it has brought the prospect of NFT music to the limelight in a unique way. Web 3 offers a possibility for artists and fans to enjoy a larger piece of the pie, and according to Bott, “Whatever sectors of the industry are not yet happy, would have to fall in line and figure out a way to get their piece of the pie sooner rather than later.” Snoop Dogg seems to concur with the stance, as he explained on the Firefox Podcast.
Not only did the hip hop legend become the owner of Snoopverse, which requires a specific pass for entry, but he recently added Death Row Records to his list of assets. Throughout his career, Snoop Dogg has embraced emerging tech in order to expand his personal brand. His other recent initiatives include a children’s content hub called Doggyland, an official FaZe Clan membership, and a home in the metaverse.
A new NFT hub backed by Snoop Dogg wants to be a “one-stop shop” for creators
Two legendary audio services of the 2000s — Winamp and Limewire — have reinvented themselves as platforms powered by social tokens. As if this news wasn’t exciting enough, especially for all you Snoop fans out there, it has also been announced that Snoop Dogg recently acquired Death Row Records. “The community pays our weekly reflection benefits to its community members to strengthen the community bond and also contributes selflessly to ‘Do Good Causes’ voted on by the Community DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization). These causes are usually focused on species, humanity, or the earth.” According to Bott, the power of ownership, communal purpose and a powerful reward system are responsible for the growth of the community.
In recent times, Snoop Dogg has remained invested in all the edgy and new industries, from Cannabis to Blockchain; Snoop has remained relevant in the conversations and has recently upped the ante by releasing the first drop of his first ever NFT album, Death Row Session Vol.2. The first drop of the album sold for a total of 100 Ether
ETH
, which is approximately $300,000. For many followers of the hip-hop icon, this was a massive endorsement of the promise that blockchain and NFTs hold the future of the music industry and beyond. There are only 25,000 Snoop Stash Boxes available for purchase, each with a price tag of $5,000. Inside the Stash Box you’ll find one of the 17 tracks featured on the B.O.D.R. album, but in the form of an NFT. There will only be “1,470 NFTs of each song,” so if you want to be the proud owner of one of Snoop’s newest songs, you’ll need to act quickly.
Indie Artists See A Way To Earn More
The label was then sold at auction for $18 million with WIDEawake Entertainment becoming its lucky owner. Snoop Dogg’s digital album (the Snoop Stash Box) will be on sale through Feb. 13. If you miss out on the opportunity or don’t want to spend the $5,000, you’ll have the option to purchase a non-NFT version of Snoop’s new album B.O.D.R. on Feb. 11. Shiller is not the only app that is attempting to apply crypto assets to pop music.
She adds of her collaboration with Snoop, “I made that in two minutes. A complete paradigm shift for sure.” Since his initial reveal, Snoop has announced a collaboration with The Sandbox, an upcoming Ethereum-based metaverse game. Snoop will have a custom-designed area in the game and host a private party for NFT pass holders, including an in-game concert. XCOPY’s artwork has increasingly become a blue chip in the NFT artwork world. Just last week, an unidentified buyer spent 1,000 ETH ($2.92 million) on another XCOPY piece called “All Time High in the City,” per data from DappRadar.
Bott, who recently exited one of his companies at a 9-figure mark, has been one of the most vocal proponents of NFTs and the blockchain. As a successful entrepreneur with multiple exits, he has since thrown his hat into the blockchain ring. The MetaLabs NFT collection, Meta Bounty Hunters, recently did $18 million in mint revenue in just three weeks, which Bott cites as evidence of growing enthusiasm worldwide. As Snoop ventures into the NFT world, he’s also revisiting his past while looking to the future with the announcement that he has acquired the Death Row Records brand, the label where he made his debut. Stay up-to-date with the latest and breaking creator and online video news delivered right to your inbox.
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As music evolves and listeners’ preferences change, artists and musicians are forced to modify their approach and perhaps even adjust their style. Snoop Dogg, despite his tenure in the music industry, has managed to keep current with trends, which gives his fans and followers to remain intact. Snoop Dogg partnered with blockchain gaming platform Gala Games, which released the NFT version of his B.O.D.R. album via Gala Music on Feb. 9, 2022. For most of these independent artists, the possibility of ensuring that they are paid quickly and handsomely for their art and not having to wait a year for royalty checks makes NFT music way more appealing than traditional streams.
- Inside the Stash Box you’ll find one of the 17 tracks featured on the B.O.D.R. album, but in the form of an NFT.
- An NFT acts like a receipt for a rare digital item, as verified by a blockchain.
- XCOPY’s artwork has increasingly become a blue chip in the NFT artwork world.
An NFT acts like a receipt for a rare digital item, as verified by a blockchain. XCOPY specializes in animated images, but an NFT can also represent still artwork, video files, interactive video game items, and nearly any other kind of digital good. The crypto industry may be mired in a prolonged slump, but that’s not stopping Snoop Dogg from investing in Web3. The West Coast hip-hop icon is one of the Co-Founders of Shiller, a new app that will let creators “token-gate” audio and video uploads. In an interview with Fortune, Iman Europe highlighted one of the many perks of releasing NFT music as “Creative and Financial Freedom.” Iman insists that web 3 allows her to release music when she wants, value it at a price point it deserves and earn way higher than she would have from streaming services. “One ETH is the equivalent of almost 1 million music streams,” Iman explains.
Not long after Kings of Leon released their album, electronic dance music star Justin Blau — better known by his artist moniker, 3LAU — sold his album, Ultraviolet, a collection of 33 different NFTs, and netted $11.7 million, shocking everyone including himself. However, like with every other thing in the industry, NFT music desperately needed an A-lister on board to find its day in the sun; in steps, the Hip Hop Legend Snoop Dogg. So, how much did Snoop pay for his acquisition of Death Row, the label founded back in 1992? We do know that after the label ran into financial troubles in 2006, it landed in bankruptcy proceedings, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Besides being a daring move, Snoop’s release of the Death Row Session, Vol 2 was special because he featured four notable indie artists on the project who had already made a name for themselves in the Web 3 music space. Death Row Session, Vol 2 featured Iman Europe, MoRuf Adewunmi, Black Dave, and Heno. Snoop Dogg’s portfolio has received quite an upgrade over the last few months.
Snoop voiced his long-standing desire to see those who helped make the music compensated adequately. The American rock band Kings of Leon released their 2021 album When You See Yourself as an NFT, becoming the first band and pretty much the first artists to successfully release their songs as NFTs. However, since the Nashville-based band took this daring step, the thought of NFT music has become quite appealing to independent artists. The possibilities that web 3 presents for community building are enormous; fans have always been metaphorically invested in the artists they love, but NFTs mean they can be invested and get financial returns. Not only did Snoop Dogg purchase land in The Sandbox and title it “Snoopverse,” but the “Doggfather” also created an NFT collection called “Decentral Eyes Dogg.” To further promote his presence in the metaverse, Snoop Dogg has decided to sell his songs on the blockchain.
Want to own a Snoop Dogg song on the blockchain? You’ll have to dish out $5,000 for it.
Since revealing himself as a notable pseudonymous NFT collector last week, rapper and entertainer Snoop Dogg hasn’t slowed down on high-value collecting. Just tonight, in fact, he spent nearly $4 million in ETH to acquire a single piece from the artist XCOPY. The Stash Box includes one of the 17 track NFTs from B.O.D.R. and there will only be 1,470 NFTs of each song. Shiller (not to be confused with Triller) is led by Snoop and entrepreneur Sam Jones. It is set for an April 2023 launch, though creators can already reach out if they want to get on board early. In a post on the Shiller website, Snoop Dogg said that he and Jones have already assembled “an army of approved creators” who will be active on the app post-launch.