Ugochukwu Emmanuel Chinonso, better known as Darvey Rucci, a musician and content creator, has highlighted the reasons why African musicians should use NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and how it will benefit the industry in the near future. The artist, who is working on an Extended Play (EP), is emphasizing the importance of all Africans adopting blockchain technology, which has been dubbed the ‘future.’

NFTs

NFTs are tokens that can be used to represent ownership of unique items. They allow us to tokenize items such as art, collectibles, and even real estate. They can only have one official owner at a time and are protected by the Ethereum blockchain – no one can change the record of ownership or copy/paste a new NFT into existence. Non-fungible is an economic term that can be used to describe things like your furniture, a song file, or your computer. Because of their distinct properties, these items cannot be substituted for others. Fungible items, on the other hand, can be exchanged because their value, rather than their unique properties, defines them. For example, ETH or USD are fungible because one ETH / $1 USD can be exchanged for another ETH / $1 USD. Because digital art is easily shared, it is difficult to make a living as an artist in this field.

NFTs offer the opportunity to give digital art a sense of individuality. Because of its ability to ensure non-fungibility, true ownership of digital assets is now possible. NFTs also give artists more leeway. Furthermore, artists can program royalties so that they receive a percentage of sales whenever their artwork is sold to a new owner.

While highlighting the importance of NFT in the entertainment industry, Darvey Rucci believes that NFT adoption will definitely benefit the music industry, as artists and creators will be able to tokenize tracks or entire albums.  “NFTs give us artists a lot of opportunities to rethink our creation and distribution models.” NFT can be used to gain access to discounted concert tickets, special concert areas, or meet-and-greets with the artist.

Some musicians can make a lot of money from music NFTs. According to one music NFT supporter, @Cooopahtroopa, Bajan rapper Haleek Maul earned $226,800 in music NFT sales on Catalog, while his annualized Spotify earnings are only $178. When asked about the figures in the tweet, Maul told CoinDesk that he’d made 81 ETH from five transactions, which at the time was worth more than $250,000.

On the surface, music NFTs appear to be the blockchain equivalent of purchasing tracks from iTunes. When you purchase a track on iTunes, you are only purchasing the right to listen to that music. On iTunes, there is no asset ownership – only a license to listen to what you’ve just paid for. Music NFTs, on the other hand, allow anyone to listen to tracks while also conferring ownership over that file via an NFT.

Music NFTs may appear counterintuitive: why buy music that you can already listen to? The answer is the same as when you buy JPEGs. Anyone can save by right-clicking. Markets and individuals place a premium on assets that are demonstrably unique and original. Some may derive value from a closer relationship with the artist that they like. Others may be interested in gaining financial exposure to an artist they believe will thrive. “If the artist is successful, the value of the music NFT they’ve invested in may rise,” he said.

Darvey alludes that MAVIN Records boss Don Jazzy influenced him to acquire his NFT collection. “I’ve been hearing so much about NFT since last year, and I’ve been wanting to venture into it because I love anything that involves money making. However, I was skeptical about the whole Metaverse thing, and I didn’t want to lose money trying to make money or get scammed, so I delayed, procrastinating on when to venture into it. This went on until a friend of mine made around $10,000 from his own listed NFT. I was persuaded. I began my own research and discovered that many celebrities supported and sponsored NFT projects, and many even had their own NFT projects, which piqued my interest. I kept following news and trends on NFTs until I saw a video on Instagram, in which Don Jazzy purchased Bored Ape for $319,000 wow! I became inspired. The next day, I invited a friend over and, with his help, I purchased 6 Mutant Apes worth 9.9 ETH each, totaling $207,003. This is exactly how I became an NFt owner!”

Darvey Rucci describes his recent activities as “living life, having fun, traveling, exploring, meeting new people (women), and making money.” Yes, I haven’t been active on social media for two months because I’ve been working on my upcoming EP, which you should be expecting soon!”