Cointelegraph senior reporter Rachel Wolfson visited South by Southwest (SXSW) — a 10-day annual technology, film and music festival based in Austin, Texas — to connect with and interview a melting pot of pioneers, luminaries and enthusiasts from the crypto, blockchain and Web3 industries.
Wolfson spoke to Darryl McDaniels, a founding member of the infamous New York hip-hop trio Run-DMC — known also by his stage name, DMC — about the group‘s illustrious discography, his views on the capitalism-induced flaws within the traditional music industry, and his overarching vision in collaboration with blockchain project The Song That Owns Itself (STOI) to advance decentralized digital ownership.
Run-DMC achieved colossal success across the 80s and 90s with multiple acclaimed albums and tracks such as “It’s Like That” and “Walk This Way,” establishing a legacy as one of the most influential hip-hop acts in the history of the genre.
Prior to the interview, McDaniels freestyled a four-bar verse dedicated to Cointelegraph and inspired by the crypto and blockchain space.
“On the microphone I get coin, I’m gonna do big things like Bitcoin. This right here’s the king-of-rock thing, the coolest mu’fucking thing on the blockchain.”
In Wolfson’s conversation with McDaniels, it was evident that his passion for reestablishing artistic sovereignty and creative ownership within the music industry is fueled by his vision for the potential impact of blockchain technology, a model in which decentralized mechanics could grant the possibility for enhanced creator autonomy.
McDaniels stated that “Run-DMC was always an entity that brought people together, changed things and made things better,” declaring his aspirations to build blockchain solutions that foster this tradition.
“What I’m doing with Algorand and The STOI is going to help us manifest the solutions that are needed to put the power back in the creator’s hands, keep the power in the creations and allow everybody to experience everything that comes along with that.”
STOI is an innovative project seeking to utilize smart contracts to create tokenomic governance models for songs. According to the vision illustrated in its white paper, the project’s goal is “empowering creative entrepreneurs and their fans by leveraging the tools of Web3.”
STOI’s inaugural nonfungible token (NFT), “God Particle,” sold on the Foundation marketplace for 0.5 Ether (ETH) on Nov. 30. On Feb. 14, STOI transitioned from Ethereum to Algorand, citing greater speed, greater cost-efficiency and lower environmental impact. The project has outlined roadmap plans to launch a governance-based decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) and additional NFT releases in the near future.
On Monday, it was announced that the third edition of the STOI project will tokenize McDaniels’ latest track, “Million Scars,” which he performed live at the AlgoRanch pop-up event at the SXSW festival the same day.
Commenting on the future of the music industry amid a rise in technological influence, McDaniels revealed that “It’s not just about moving out the middle man,” before stating that:
“It’s making something that is all-inclusive where everybody’s involved from creation to its continuation. […] The song owns itself because the song is the thing. The creator is where the power begins, and that’s where the power should stay.”
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