Crypto Megan Podcast | Spottie Wifi: The CryptoPunk Rapper Revolutionizing Music and NFTs

My name is Megan Nielsen, aka Crypto Megan, your host for today. And I am so excited for this one. It's going to be really amazing. I want to introduce our guest, Miguel Mora, aka Spotty WiFi, in the house. Man, it's an honor to have you here today.

Man, thank you. Thanks for having me. This is dope.

Yeah, yeah. We're both in this journey, and I've been following your journey now since we met in Las Vegas, actually, last October. And from there we've seen each other in Miami, New York, and now here in Hollywood.

Yeah, that's crazy.

So it's come like full circle. It's, it's really cool to have you on. I think we'll just get started by you explaining a little bit about who you are, what you're doing in the Web3 space, and we'll take it from there.

Okay. So yeah, my, you know, I go by the name Spotty WiFi. I am the best and the only CryptoPunk rapper alive. So, you know, basically a CryptoPunk is a digital character, one of the first NFT collections that ever came out. I bought one of these characters February of 2021 and decided I'm going to make mine a musical act, you know, a rapper. And so that was sort of the beginning of it was early 2021. And through that character, I developed a concept album. and sold the concept album as an NFT in August of '21. So it became this innovative thing. Like, we did some things with music NFTs that hadn't been done before, and now it's one of the more historic and more successful music NFT collections that's ever existed.

I mean, one of the first, right? I didn't know that you were actually one of the first in line to have done this innovative thing with music to attach it to an NFT, which we'll get into the definition of an NFT a minute, right? Um, but you were one of the first in this. You are literally a pioneer in this, in the music industry.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm definitely like regarded as the first musical artist that was inspired by an NFT. You know, now, now like everybody's heard of Bored Apes, you know, people, you know, amazing artists like Snoop and Eminem and Timbaland and All these artists have done things with their Bored Apes, but I kind of kicked it off with my CryptoPunk doing it before the Bored Apes were even a thing last year.

That's so cool. That's so cool. And before we get into that more, what I want to do is kind of explore what it was like for you growing up. How did you get into music? Your genre is rap, right? You're a rapper.

Yeah.

So how did— how— what was it like growing up? When did you realize that you had that musical talent and what was it like? wanting to be a rapper and where you're from? Tell us a little bit about that.

So my genre is rap, but I am going to be doing a lot of dance music next year, which I'm really excited about too. So stay tuned for that.

All right.

Growing up, I actually played the piano. I took piano lessons when I was a kid, played the piano in church sometimes, sang in church. And other than that, I just loved listening to music. You know, my mom would listen to the oldies station, like, whenever we were driving around. So, like, you know, all sorts of stuff from the '50s and '60s. My dad would listen to, like, a lot of Enrique Iglesias, who we just saw on the Walk of Fame, and other, like, Latin music. And there was no hip-hop in our house at all. It was really just going to school that I kind of became exposed to hip-hop and began to love it, like, in middle school, probably, and had no aspirations. Like, I'd never really thought of myself as being a musician or being a rapper until, like, college days, you know, or late high school. Started recording and then taking it more serious and taking more seriously in college and after college.

Right. So you went from playing in the church and classical piano and oldies to rap. Let's take it back a step. And where, where exactly did you grow up?

I grew up in Rockford, Illinois. It's about 90 miles west of Chicago.

Okay.

And I have to say, I kind of already knew that because when I met you in Vegas, we were really kind of just opening up about what we did. And I'm also on this Web3 journey on a Web3 World speaking tour. And I noticed a little bit of a Midwest accent. And I haven't heard it since, but I actually—

Chicago.

Chicago.

All right.

Yeah, I heard it. I heard it, and I never heard it again. But I told my mom, and she's like, I didn't hear it. So I think that's super cool because it's just so different, everything. And you started out with such a different background to where you transitioned to today. And your name, you have Latino origin, right? Miguel Mora.

Yep, yep, yep.

My dad is Costa Rican. My dad's born in Raised in Costa Rica, came here as a teenager. And so, yeah. So my sister and me are you know what's that make us first generation or second generation?

I don't even know.

Yeah.

But yeah, something like that.

But that's cool because you wouldn't know unless you speak to you and you find out what your name is.

Yeah.

Hablas español?

Sí, sí, poquito.

I I think it's really cool that you I'm I live in Spain. I'm from LA, but I've been living in Spain for the last twelve years, and I think it's really cool that. That's kind of your background. And I think it's going to be really relatable to a lot of people as this genre grows, as NFTs grow, as all of you as an artist. So I think your story is really cool. So you went from church to rap. What did your parents think of that transition?

You know, when I first started, I had a rap group that I started called The Bridge. Many years ago, and I didn't even tell my parents about it. And they found out about it because we made it into like the local newspaper. And somebody showed them like that the writer for the paper was like talking about how our album was, was hot and was dope and stuff. So, but they were very supportive. They were like, why didn't you tell us about this? I was like, well, did you listen to it?

Yeah, it can get a little explicit, right? Especially if you have that kind of like more religious upbringing.

Yeah.

Assuming since you were doing church music, that could have been an interesting transition for you.

Yeah, because it was like all party music when I was starting out. So like college vibes, just party music, drinking and girls and stuff like that was kind of the content. But they were always very supportive. They would come to shows and stuff once once they kind of knew that there were shows to come to. But yeah, but—

That's one thing, right? Actually knowing that this is a movement, it's happening.

And yeah, and definitely you could hear, especially my mom's musical taste influencing my music. And she knew that. Like, I did an album called Music for the End of the World where I basically used some unauthorized clips from this War of the Worlds radio show that she, like, had taught me about when I was a little kid.

That's good.

And like, even when I was growing up, like, some of my favorite music was like samples of like Hard Knock Life, you know, from Jay-Z and like other, like Puff Daddy taking, taking old songs and flipping them or Busta Rhymes or eventually Kanye. And that was, that was like my introduction to hip-hop music was really like really Jay-Z taking songs and me being like, oh, I recognize this song.

Right.

But it's different and it's cool.

And kind of like splicing that in, in the style and the way that it's put together, right?

Yeah.

I just heard a thing lately. I don't know where it was, but they were talking about Kanye, how in his music he takes bits and pieces and mashes it up well. And he's trying to do that also in like written word now and trying to express his thoughts in the way he puts together music. And I thought that was really interesting.

Yeah.

The way you put together something and make it a masterpiece. So you kind of remind me, you give me Eminem-esque vibes.

Okay.

I would say, like, just a little bit of, like, really doing your thing and getting out there and especially how you transition in your journey. And I know that you've said that he's been an inspiration to you as well, right?

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I loved Eminem as a kid, especially like Yeah, the first few albums. I would say, especially like my first song that I did as Spotty, as this character Spotty Wi-Fi, was a little bit Eminem-inspired. 'Cause his first few albums, he would come out with a single where he would make you laugh. Like, it was just all jokes. And then he would come out with something like really hard, you know, really, really like just tough or whatever. And that first song, like, hi, my name is, hi, my name is Chika Chika Slim Shady.

Yeah.

That was like such a great introduction. You know, or then after that, it was like the real Slim Shady. Will the real Slim Shady please stand up? So when, when we, my producer and I first said, we're going to make a rap song out of this CryptoPunk, that was definitely an inspiration because it was like, we need to introduce the world to this character and we can't take ourselves too seriously because it's a cartoon rapper at the end of the day.

Right.

So like that first song, I'm Spotty, is like, All jokes. It's all just trying to make people laugh.

Which is— that's something that breaks people's barriers down. It gets them to kind of like relax and release and really get into it without having this tension there and just open up to the music itself. And I like one of the things that you said, if you're making fun of yourself, they're laughing with you, not at you.

Absolutely.

Right?

Absolutely.

So that was one of your earlier strategies when you were introducing yourself.

Just in life. In life, I was just an awkward kid. So that was always a defense mechanism, was humor.

Absolutely.

And it's shown through in your music and it's helped you throughout your journey. Yeah. And so you were a legitimate, like, successful rapper back then. What was it, around 2013, right before there?

Yeah, I was doing music full-time from like 2006 to 2012. So, I mean, wow, I had some success, but not like monetary success, really. You know, I had good, like, Within the community. Yeah. Like, got to perform on some big stages, open for some big artists, got good reviews, blog love, things like that. But it was not easy at that time. Well, it's still not, but it was really difficult to monetize music.

Right.

This was like during when I started out, it was like the MySpace days. And we pressed CDs. We would press CDs and try to sell them, but also we'd give them out if if we thought it was worth giving them out. And by the end of that era, from like 2006 to 2012, I think by the end of that, like MySpace was pretty much dead. And it was like the SoundCloud era and the blog era.

Right.

And all of that transition was leading to a time where pretty much the music is— people aren't paying for it. People aren't looking to buy a CD anymore. they can just listen for free in a lot of cases.

Yeah, actually, I was going to comment on that a little bit later. But I just watched the series The Playlist by Spotify on Netflix. And it goes over kind of the whole movement, the transition of music and the evolution of music through time. And it started out with the pirates, BitBay— Pirate Bay, sorry. Yeah, it started out with the pirates. And they were downloading music illegally for free. And then we kind of transitioned to Napster and Kazaa, where people are now accustomed to listening to this music for free. They're not going to pay for it. But how do we transition to a model that's fair for both artists and producers and record labels? So we'll get into that in a minute. But what I really want to hone in on, because I think this is so interesting for people who want to be successful artists who may be struggling right now, to kind of comment on your journey and tell us a little bit about the struggles you had, because now you're in an amazing position, right? You're an up-and-coming star. I mean, you are a star. You're a star, and I've seen you've been doing incredible work with some of the biggest artists in this industry. But getting to that point, what would you say was your biggest challenge?

Man, the biggest challenge to me. That's such a good question. That's a deep question.

I know. I wanted to take this deep because there's so many artists that are, you know, I guess it would be they don't believe in themselves enough and they have a circle around them that doesn't propel them forward. I see a lot of people who get stuck that don't have, you know, people who really teach them the mindset of what it's like to succeed, because they might look at you and think, oh, maybe it was easy, or it was overnight success, or this just happened. But this is a series of struggle, of pain, of blood, sweat, and tears. And I love to hear that side of the story.

I think honestly, one of my biggest challenges was, I've always been hesitant and too intimidated to learn how to produce my own music. Like, if I— I really believe if I had— if I had production chops, like, or if I just had producers around me that really believed in me, like, over the last decade, I probably would have just kept making music. But it was like, it was, it was like Sometimes it just felt like pulling teeth to even find collaborators. And I wasn't, I wasn't like studying how to make my own music, which is what a lot of really motivated artists do. It's like, oh, if nobody wants to make beats for me, I'll make my own beats. But I never took that leap of faith. I never even recorded myself until the song I'm Spotty.

Wow.

Like, never. I was too— I was just too like, I guess, apathetic or whatever to even, like, say—

Was it apathy or was it more like, I'm afraid of what this is like, the fear of coming out and actually trying something that you're not sure how it's going to go?

I think I just have a— I'll blame— I think this is kind of a cop-out, but I think I just have, like, a certain level of impatience or maybe ADD where I'm not good at, like, I want to teach myself Photoshop or I want to teach myself Logic or I want to just download a program. Because I've always had them. I've always had like the hardware to do it. I've always had a computer, you know, but something about just taking that first step and humbling yourself enough to say, I'm going to start from zero and it's not going to sound good at first or it's not going to look good at first, but I'm just going to claw my way, you know, one step at a time. I never took those steps with producing music. And now, you know, that's one of my greatest blessings is like I have a lot of really dope producers that want to collaborate with me. And that makes it so easy. So much easier.

I saw you did one with Bun B.

Yep.

Yep.

Can you remind the audience what Bun B is famous for? Yeah.

I mean, Bun B is a legend from UGK's—

His biggest song.

Underground Kings. I mean, most people have heard the song Big Pimpin'.

Yeah.

Probably their biggest song. Well, their biggest song is I Choose You, probably. Everybody's heard that at a wedding or a wedding party or something like that.

I don't know. The Big Pimpin' was pretty— give us a few. Few. The Big Pimpin'.

Big Pimpin', spending G's, you know.

I remember that.

Giga Man, Pimp C, and B.U.N.B. The B.U.N.B. is Bun. That's Bun B. So, oh yeah. So yeah, we did a song together in late 2021 called All Time High, which I'm super proud of. That was crazy. Like, I dropped my album in August, which had no guest appearances, really. And then 3 months later, released a song with the legendary Bun B, which is crazy.

Right. That's really cool. So you've had your own struggles to get to where you've gotten. So then there was a point where you decided, I can't continue with this right now. And you took a break and you got a day job, we call it.

Right.

What did you transition to at that point and what were your thoughts?

So I started working in advertising. I got an entry-level job doing media buying, which basically means you're just helping a big company figure out where to spend their ad dollars.

Right.

Online, in my case, online, digital. And that was cool. I liked it. It was fun. I got to be creative and thinking about websites to partner with, content ideas. And I just started to focus on that. I planned to keep doing music, but it just kind of like fell to the wayside, became a backburner thing, and got good at my day job and then got familiar with what it feels like to pay your bills on time and things like that.

Yeah.

And just never really looked back. And so it went from 2013. I started that job in 2012. I put out my last album before Spotty Wi-Fi at the end of 2012 and then didn't write another song until 2021 with Spotty.

Wow. That's a long time in between. And what brought you back to that? I mean, having let it go for so long without making music, what was the turning point for you to get back into it?

So really, it was losing my job because of COVID So I had just made—

Silver lining.

Yeah, very much so. I had just become a VP at a big agency. So it was like a dream. It was like everything I had been working towards because I was climbing the corporate ladder and got this job at a big agency. At the time, they were like the top in terms of billable dollars, you know, the money coming in from ad spend. They were the biggest agency in the country.

Wow.

And I became a VP there and was living in a high-rise in downtown Brooklyn with my girlfriend at the time, who's now my wife.

Oh yeah.

At Spotty.

I met your wife. I love her. And also what you've said about it, which I feel also my own journey on this Web3 world speaking tour that I'm in. My husband is My rock, my supporter, the person who, like we said, you have to have people in your group in order for you to succeed that lead you to that successful mind point mentality, because you have to take risks. You have to believe in yourself. You have to go for it when others won't a lot of times. And so that kind of support is incredible. And I've seen her, and you two are just amazing together. She's just the best.

She is. I mean, there definitely would be no Spotty WiFi if it wasn't for her. Because we were living the dream in downtown Brooklyn. I had a great job. And then COVID hits, and I got furloughed at first, which means basically there's no work for me, but they're still paying me a small percentage of my salary. And so I started freelancing. So I was getting— at first, it was kind of good because I was like, I'm furloughed. I'm still getting this money, and I'm freelancing. So now I'm getting some extra money.

What everybody was kind of feeling on COVID with the stimulus going on and like—

Yeah. Oh, I missed out. I should have done unemployment, actually, because I would have made a lot more money. But I was nervous because I kept hearing horror stories about people not getting their unemployment because I could have gone off furlough. I could have opted for them to just cut me off and then done the— but anyways, but we were doing all right. Going into 2021, I just had all this extra free time on my hands, you know? And so that's when I started. Well, actually, we moved to Florida because we were paying a bunch of money to live in this high-rise, and all of a sudden it was just like not worth the money.

Right.

And it's like really first world problems. It's like the pool closed.

Yeah, but, you know, it is what it is. It like, it takes a certain amount of income to sustain that kind of lifestyle, right? Then you start thinking about, okay, what can I do during this time? How can I transition? And this is interesting to me because this is kind of like when the rise of Clubhouse happened, right? Everybody started to jump on Clubhouse, which is now more Twitter Spaces, to kind of interact with each other and create with each other and have these conversations. So you now transition back to the thought of maybe I should get back into music eventually.

So we moved to Florida, and when we moved to Florida, we had an extra bedroom that was became my office. So at first it was just for me to be doing freelance work, like advertising, marketing stuff. And then I discovered NFTs in January of 2021. So I discovered this thing called NBA Top Shot.

Oh yeah.

So it's basically digital basketball cards, for lack of a—

Collectible digital basketball cards. And I like this because a lot of people who will be listening to this aren't Web3 natives, I call them, like Maybe you and I could consider ourselves really into this space. And so I think it's always interesting to get people interested through art and music because everybody can get that, right? And so a digital collectible, NBA Top Shot. So I think what we have to do here is just define what is an NFT in simple terms for people who are listening.

To me, I just think of an NFT as a digital certificate of authenticity. So you can buy a digital basketball card from the NBA And the whole world knows that it's authentic. It's not somebody screenshotted this, somebody screen recorded this and sold me just a fake thing. Like, no, it's on the blockchain, which you can research the blockchain and spend a lot of time studying it. But in this case, all it, all it really means is, you know, exactly where it came from.

And if it's authentic.

If it's authentic, how many people owned it before you, if any. And all this is public.

Right. And you can check certain things like rarity. And just like Pokémon cards are actually real collectible cards of players of basketball, you can actually tell, but much more easily. You don't have somebody who comes in and verifies it for you. You can just see it there right openly for everyone to see that that's yours. It's like digital portable property.

Exactly. And you don't have to worry about, is it going to deteriorate? Is there going to get water damage? Am I going to lose this in my mom's basement, et cetera, et cetera? What really clicked for me is like for the NBA, if I, if I own one of these digital collectibles and I sell it, they get a cut. So as a kid, I used to collect all sorts of cards, sports cards, Star Wars cards, Magic cards, all these different things. And it's a whole industry where people will, you know, sell and trade amongst themselves. And the NBA gets none of that.

Nothing.

So once I started realizing like, oh, Of course they're promoting this because it's a whole new revenue stream for them, which means the NFL is going to do it, the NHL is going to do it, UFC is going to do it, Disney is going to do it, Pixar. Like, every IP holder in the world, every major IP holder is going to want to do this because they get a cut of all the secondary sales in perpetuity if they want.

Right.

You know, so that was super inspiring to me.

It's mind-blowing. I mean, the amount of different kind of transactions you can make and different kind of data and insights and also obviously revenue share that you can generate off of these digital collectibles is really mind-blowing. So when I hear people say things like, oh no, we don't believe in that, or we're not ready to dive into that, it's like, man, the sooner you jump on board this train, the better off you'll be. And I just did, where we saw each other mutually at a Benzinga, that Benzinga event.

Yeah.

You were talking about music. I was talking about how to onboard the next billion users. to crypto. And I truly believe that the next $200 to $300 million will come from big brands. They'll come from collectibles. They'll come from the Disneys, the Pixars.

Starbucks.

Yeah, Starbucks. Okay, I always use that example. But so yeah, let's take Starbucks. You can literally— now Starbucks has their loyalty program where you can buy and sell these NFTs without even knowing through your user experience that you're using blockchain technology, right? It's just there to verify digitally verify that it's yours, but the end user doesn't even have to know they're using blockchain technology. And they got away with the lingo. They de-jargonized it, I call it. They just called it Journey Stamps instead of NFTs, and everyone's happy.

Yeah, right, exactly. It's, it's, it's major. And, and at that time in early 2021, NBA Top Shot was opening the floodgates for a lot of new people to come in. And because you didn't even need to really use cryptocurrency. You could just log in, create an account, and purchase with a debit card or a credit card.

Okay, interesting.

So that was— so I was part of a big wave of people that came in and never had bought an NFT before. So this is January of '21. And then I get a text or a call from a friend of mine, Keith, who I used to work with at my very first advertising agency job. And he was like the innovation guy there. And he was like, let's— he was like, I need to talk to you. And I didn't know what it was about, but I just had this sixth sense that it was about NFTs because I was just so getting so into it.

Everybody was on the hype. And yeah, it's funny you say NBA Top Shot because I actually never got involved in that one. I got involved with Bored Ape Yacht Club as pretty much my first one, which we're both a member of. But I didn't go through the whole NFT Top Shot phase, but I saw that a lot of people who had come in through sports and through the physical collectibles got in through that way.

Yeah, a lot of Bored Apes too. Yeah, I think a lot of Bored Apes were first, you know, brought in or, or, you know, sort of got into the space through Top Shot. So my guy calls me and he's— and of course my sixth sense was correct. He's like, I'm starting a YouTube show where we're going to talk about NBA Top Shot and talk about NFTs. He's like, I have a host. But I— we're looking for a co-host. The host was this guy that I never met before named— he goes by Crypto Novo. So Crypto Novo, he had bought, I think, like a dozen CryptoPunks the previous year in 2020. So he bought all these CryptoPunks for like hundreds of dollars and everybody thought he was crazy. By the time I meet him in January or February of '21, the cheapest CryptoPunk is probably like $30,000, $40,000, something like that.

Pretty hefty price tag.

Yeah, exactly.

For what most people consider just a JPEG.

Right.

So at that point, it was, it was kind of a leap of faith on your part to think maybe I should get involved.

Yeah. So, so we start hosting a YouTube channel together. We become friends, like lots of late nights of just like talking through like what, you know, what, what we're doing. And, and then there's like a YouTube video that surfaced of Mark Cuban talking about how CryptoPunks are priceless and they're the rookie card of NFTs. And so somewhere along the lines, I just decided like I'm going to buy one of these. So I had been, I had been accumulating crypto since like 2017. So I had some crypto. And so on February 23rd, 2021, I bought CryptoPunk number 5528 out of 10,000 CryptoPunks. Mine is 5528. And it was like $43,000 or $44,000. It was the most expensive purchase I'd ever made at that point. I still don't own, you know, I didn't own a house. I still don't own a house. I didn't own a car. I still don't own a car. But I bought this CryptoPunk while my wife was at work, you know?

And so— Oh God, I can imagine how that went over.

She was, she was working an overnight shift at the hospital. I think I made the purchase at like 4 in the morning. And I just stayed up because, like, my adrenaline was up. And then she got home and I was like, babe, I got to tell you something. I did something. And so I told her, like, I bought this thing for $40,000. And she was just, like, deliriously tired. And she's just like, okay, I trust you. We'll talk about it later.

That is a keeper right there. That's a wifey for lifey.

For real. For real.

I'm just saying.

She was with it. She trusted that I had done my research and everything.

Right. I mean, she trusts you, but even so, I mean, it's a crazy thing to go and tell somebody who I know, because I have had similar experiences, but mine wasn't, I'll get into that in a minute, but just telling them I'm gonna spend this amount of money on what they just consider or know to be just a JPEG, a picture of something like that's, she has a lot of faith in you.

For sure, for sure. Other people I told that were like, could not believe it. You know, people that were even into crypto, like people that were really, you know, excited about Bitcoin and different cryptocurrencies. And they thought this was just absolutely like a bridge too far. Like, you—

They thought you lost it. That's it. He's gone off the deep end.

Like my one guy, my one guy who I kind of helped get into cryptocurrency, he was like, we can never tell my wife that you've done this because she's going to really think that.

She's going to think my friends are insane.

This is all crazy. So, so now I have a CryptoPunk. And once I made my profile picture on Twitter this CryptoPunk, I started getting followers more quickly.

Interesting.

From, you know, the NFT world and the crypto world and people that were just following CryptoPunks. You know, CryptoPunks would follow each other and other people that were starting to learn about NFTs and blah, blah, blah. So that is when very quickly I had this kind of lightbulb moment where I was just thinking, you know, back when I used to do music, this would be a golden opportunity to have like a, a built-in audience, a captive audience that they're going to tune into what I'm doing just because I'm a CryptoPunk now. So what if I took my CryptoPunk? And at that time, nobody was doing anything creative with a CryptoPunk, really. It was like Crypto Novo, right? He had his CryptoPunk that he would use a Snapchat lens on our show. which inspired me. G-Money, same thing. And that was it. There wasn't— there were no— there was no Punks comic yet. There was no CryptoPunk comic books. There were no Bored Apes. None of that.

There's nothing to look to. It's like, this is what people are doing now, right? This is how I can, you know, utilize this. Because the CryptoPunks are a little bit different than Bored Ape Yacht Club, for example, in that it's not really a membership club, so to speak, in the way that Bored Ape Yacht Club is. It's more just about art. You know, it is a community, but they really haven't done much by way of what Bored Ape Yacht Club is doing, for example, with all the activations and stuff. So that for me is also one step further in, okay, I'm going to have some faith and buy this. And yeah, it's almost like getting into the art scene, you know?

It was to me. It was because I wasn't thinking about music at all. Literally, the way I thought about it was I felt that these 10,000 CryptoPunks are like the new Mona Lisa of the digital age. And so I literally Googled the value of the Mona Lisa and I said, if I, if I'm, I'm buying 1/10,000 of this. So whatever this is divided by 10,000, as long as I'm paying less than that, I'm getting a good deal. And actually, like, if you could, if you fractionalize the Mona Lisa, it would— I think you would get more value out of it than its actual valuation. Because all— you know what I mean? Because absolutely more people would be able to buy in, right? So they would— so you'd have a larger audience of people that could say, I want to own a piece of the Mona Lisa. So the actual value you get if you fractionalize it, I think, would be greater than—

I would agree.

Yeah.

And, you know, just the NFTs in the metaverse in general, the more eyes you have on something, the more value— valuable it becomes, right? So if you have it somewhere displayed where people can look at it around the world, also digitally and not have to be there physically. I mean, it just all makes sense to me. But that's interesting that you had the wherewithal to kind of break those numbers down and say, this is a good investment and here's why.

That's how, that's how I was just thinking of it was like, this is like, you know, a game changer in terms of technology and it's going to be historic forever. So, and at that time it wasn't about I'm going to make a character out of it at all. You know, in fact, When I did start to do that, which was very quickly because I put out the first song— I bought the punk in February. I put out the first song in April. And at that time, it was unclear if I even had a copyright license to do that. Like, a lot of people told me, you don't have a right to do that, blah, blah. They're going to shut you down. They're going to send you a cease and desist.

There's no information about this. You're literally having to make this up as you go, and not in a make-it-up kind of way, but just kind of roll with it and say, well, hey, like, this is the information I had from this person, or I've consulted with this person. It's like there's no playbook for this. So you really are a pioneer and a trailblazer in this way because you had to really, really be creative about it, right?

Yeah. They didn't even have a terms and conditions page when you purchased it. So I bought this thing for $40,000 and it wasn't even clear, like, what am I buying? You know, are you— do you get— do you get to use this on— could I make a t-shirt out of this? Could I make an album out of this? But I just said, I'm going to do it. And if they do send me a cease and desist, that would be a huge win, right?

Because they're paying attention to you, right? That's eyes on you.

If they acknowledge it at all, that's a win. So we were just like, let's just do it and see what happens. And then, you know, the people supported the first song. We put out the first song in April. Nobody in the CryptoPunk world or the NFT world had seen anything like it. And we got a lot of support. We got a lot of love. We made animated music videos, which nobody had seen that really before with, with a CryptoPunk. And then it just kept going, you know, by May. And so like right after we released the song, they announced that they were doing the first ever auction of a CryptoPunk at Christie's.

Wow.

So that's really validating. Then you're seeing Christie's step up and say yes. This is art. There is a demand for it. It is high-end. That's, that's really cool because when you're spending, I mean, I don't know if this has happened to you, but I have a similar story to when I, when I got into NFTs. I've been in crypto for a long time. So my transition to NFTs was pretty natural. Like, okay, I gotta check this out and see what's going on because it's an evolution of what I've been doing already.

Right.

And I kind of was gone for 10 days, pretty much behind the computer. My mom calls it going into the matrix.

Yeah.

And she's like, you're in the matrix. And I'm like, yeah, I didn't come up for air for about 10 days. And then finally I made a presentation to my husband. And I said, same as you, you know, but it wasn't a $40,000 price tag at the time. It was a $15,000 price tag, which was still like, wow, okay, I'm gonna tell my husband when he comes home from work, just like, like what you would do for car shopping that you spent months researching. So I saw these apes, the Bored Ape Yacht Club, and I was looking at the Mutants 'cause they were obviously a better entry point at that time. And I showed him, I told him I was so happy, I had such a full heart. I'm like, oh my God, I'm going for it. And he looked at me, he's like, You're insane. You're actually crazy. Like, this is— this is— I— he just left. He, like, shut the door. And it was, like, soul-crushing for me because I'd spent so much time and I, I'd been in the Discord and I'd hear these, like, grown men making kind of like ape sounds, like, just as a part of, like, rallying together in this club that nobody really cared about at the time because the celebrities weren't in yet.

Right.

It wasn't so big. It was very— it was at the end of, like, the bear market, I would say. And so people weren't really paying attention. And so I said, no, I'm not giving up on this. I'm not giving up on this. He just doesn't understand. So I went— this is kind of crazy, but I have to tell the story. I went to my nail lady and I got mutant green nails. I like made a whole theme about it.

That's dope.

And I made a presentation, like a slideshow. And I told him, sit down, I want you to see this. This is what we can do with this. This is how we can use it. We can actually then also bought an office in the metaverse near Bored Ape Yacht Club. Like, I went all in on this. And he's like, you know what? This is really fucking cool. Like, let's buy 2, right? And so I feel like it's just a matter of really breaking it down and explaining it to people.

So yeah, it's, it is. Um, and even then, you know, sometimes it's still a big leap of faith. Yeah.

And crypto for me doesn't feel— sometimes when you're making those big transactions, you're like heart skipping a beat and you're literally spending what you would spend on a car in 30 seconds. Right.

Yeah.

And it feels like such a rush. I don't know about for you when you bought it, but it's— it doesn't feel like real money almost. If you have that same money in cash, you'd be like, wow, okay. But I don't know, it's just some kind of disconnect there.

Yeah, it's definitely different. Like thinking of it in terms of Ethereum or cryptocurrency versus like US dollars coming out of your bank account is definitely different. But yeah, I was super nervous because it was the first Ethereum purchase I had ever made. Because like with NBA Top Shot, I would just use a debit card or credit card. So yeah, it was like super nerve-wracking. I wasn't sure if I was doing it right. You know, I was like, am I just sending this into, you know, the abyss?

The abyss. Yeah. Never to be seen again.

Right. But thankfully, you know, it worked out. And then, yeah. So the Christie's moment was like super validating. It was like, whoa, you know, this is a big deal now.

Yeah.

Now that like the big auction houses are, are doing this. So once they announced that, I actually wrote a song called Christie's and released that. That became the theme song for this CryptoPunk comic book that had like a Christie's connection. And so that was like the second song. And the funny thing we did was during the auction, the day of the auction, we rented one of those billboard trucks that has like the screens on all the sides.

Yeah, I saw you on those billboard trucks in Miami.

So yeah, we did it in Miami again this year. We've done it a few times. The first time we did it though, we, we took one of those trucks, we put the Spotty Wi-Fi character on all the screens, and we had the first song, I'm Spotty, blasting on repeat. And we just parked it in front of Christie's for like 8 hours the whole day. And amazing. That you know, some journalists or photographers took pictures of that. And so when you go on Getty Images, if you search CryptoPunk or you search NFT, a lot of the pictures are of the Spotty truck in front of Christie's. So the whole year last year or the whole like last year and a half, like a high percentage of the time, if somebody is writing a news article about NFTs, they'll use that picture as the header image, which is really funny because it might—

Talk about creativity.

Well, it'll be like it was really funny because it would be like, you know, NFTs are going crazy. Everyone's getting rich off NFTs. And it'd be the picture. Or like 2 months later, it'd be like, NFTs are dead. You know, it's the same picture. So that was like, that was our little hack that we did for the Christie's auction, which worked out.

That's really cool. And so you got this character now, Spotty, who you kind of— it's become like your persona, right? And so it's really like your online identity now that people connect you with that persona. And this is your whole thing. So What would happen then? I mean, you know, at the end of the day, it's still an investment, right? So would you ever consider selling it or would you hold on to that thing forever and keep it in a vault?

So I co-own the CryptoPunk now with my partner, Stefan Clark. So like once I approached him to do the music, I was like, dude, I need your help. I have this idea. If you partner with me on this, We'll, we'll set up an arrangement where we'll co-own the CryptoPunk. So that's what we did. And we would sell it eventually, but it would be like, it would be like a retirement-level amount of money that we would sell it for. We wouldn't, we wouldn't sell it for like—

6, maybe 7?

No, I think like 10.

7 or 8. I meant actually, I think 10.

Wow.

Okay.

I think like 10 plus. So we're, we both see it as like a long-term investment, you know, in a couple of decades or a few decades, you know, maybe there will be a sale.

There you go. That's the alpha. Yeah. Couple of decades, 10 figures, baby. Let's go.

And, and now I've bought— I bought another Punk number 577, which is all— it's like identical to Spotty, but he has a purple cap instead of the gray cap. So if anybody does want to buy it, send me a DM.

Buy a piece of history right here. Right.

If you got the 10 ready to go, let me know because we'll just swap in the other CryptoPunk.

So I want to transition now toward the end of this conversation into actual— the actual implications in music and how the power of this new technology, because this technology is actually fundamentally shifting the way our society values things, right? And the way that technology can impact the transition of or the evolution of music in that the artists now can get a share of everything, and it's much easier, and the middlemen are essentially cut out, right?

Mm-hmm.

And so it's revolutionary. And just to bridge it with a piece from this Spotify, the playlist, it's so funny. There was a moment where they were— Spotify was then the one that was evolving and coming up with these new ideas, and they were trying to get Sony Records on board. And the guy for Sony Records was like the dinosaur, and he was just like, I don't understand all these fucking pirates. Like, no way they're gonna stream music for free. And then there's one point where everyone was against him. Finally, he had to change. This is how the change happens. You have no other option because that's where society's headed. And he looks at it and he's like, this is a digital fucking jukebox, right? Spotify. So now we've come full circle to where Spotify will have to evolve in some way, right?

Yeah.

How is Spotify different? How are the 2 models different for music? Maybe you can break that down for us a little bit. and the difference in how the music is, the royalties are shared?

And so there's, there's like a few different ways you could think about it. I think what's, what's helpful for me to think about it is Spotify gives you access to MP3s, which means you can just listen to music. That's all an MP3 lets you do is I can listen to some music. And technically speaking, I'm really only supposed to listen to it for my personal enjoyment or like with some friends. Like it's not supposed to be like this is how I'm playing music, you know, at a concert or at an establishment where music is a big draw or anything like that. It's not for commercial use. Like you have a license to listen for personal enjoyment to that music. Same is true when you buy— when you purchase an MP3 on iTunes or wherever, which people really don't even do that much of anymore. But with an NFT, I can give you the MP3. I can give you the ability to listen to the music, but that is like just a starting point. It's not the endpoint. I can also, with the same token, I can give you a copyright license where you can actually use the music in your podcast or in your film or your video game for a commercial purpose, not just personal enjoyment. If I want to give you that right, I can with the same token unlock physical merchandise, more digital collectibles, and, and through whoever owns your particular music NFT.

So let's break this down, right? How does this work? So you actually, before we break it down, I want to talk about your mega moment of success when you dropped your NFTs for the first time. Um, tell us a little bit about that because I think that's so cool.

So Dropped a few songs last year. By August, we had an album. And so of course we said we got to make the album an NFT. And we wanted to make sure that it would be historic by innovating and doing things that hadn't been done before. So as I was kind of alluding to, we offered a copyright license. So if you own that NFT from that collection, or most of my collections, then you actually have a sync license for that song. You could put it in any type of content you want. You can monetize it. But I still own my masters and I still own my publishing.

Right.

Which is, you know, it's pretty revolutionary because what it means is if you own my NFT, you know, any brand could approach you and say, because you can sub-license it, you can even sub-license.

So I can sell your music to somebody else. Or I can let them use my NFT or whatever it is so that they could use that song in whatever they're doing.

Exactly. So a brand could say, we want to pay you to use this song because you have a really rare Spotty song. You get some cash upfront. It's called a sync fee. Then they place that song in a film, maybe, or they place it in an advertisement. And if that airs on broadcast television or terrestrial radio or Spotify or wherever this advertisement airs, I'll get a performance royalty because I still own my publishing and my masters. So I get a royalty from the song being played or performed in public. So that's what that was inspired by, the Bored Apes. The Bored Apes created this mutually aligned incentive where they gave people IP rights so that the owners of the apes became brand ambassadors. They want to see the brand.

Brilliant on a brand side, right? That's like every brand's dream. Let my community build this out, right, and do the PR without us having to spend dime on that because they are so excited to be a part of this community.

Exactly. So that was like our way of taking that model and transcribing it for music, which had not been done before. We also made it a blind mint, or like I compare it to like a gumball machine where when people on the day of the release, when they went to go buy their NFT or mint their NFT, They didn't know which song they were going to get. They might—

That's cool.

That's exciting.

And that hadn't been done before. They might get a song from the album or they might get a remix. The remixes are really rare. Some of the remixes are one of one and they had rarity traits. So like we took the drums from one version of the song and the bassline from a remix of the song and the synths from another remix of the song, and we would mix them up and make these different combinations. So the same way You would look at a Bored Ape and be like, oh, this one has gold fur, that's really rare. Or this one has crazy eyes, that's really common. That's what we were doing with the instruments, the instrumentation, or the stems of the song, which again hadn't been done before. We gave a vinyl record for each of the 2,000 NFTs. We pressed a vinyl record. So you're actually buying a physical vinyl if you choose to claim it.

So you attached this digital collectible that they would buy, and not just a collectible, obviously much more, to a physical good as well. So you can literally do whatever you want with these songs. You can provide infinite amount of value.

Exactly.

With the token. Exactly right. So yes, if you go to OpenSea or you go online, you, you look up the NFT, you will be able to listen to the song. But that's just the beginning. You know, now I do parties where you know, if I have a concert, if I have a show, if whatever I'm doing, a lot of the times I'm able to work it out with the venue or with the promoter or wherever where, you know, maybe if you have my token, you get in for free.

That's cool.

Or maybe not everyone. Maybe I have a guest list and I start with the people that have my token to figure out who's going to be able to make it. Let me put you on my guest list, things like that.

But you can also see who your mega fans are right now. And that's something that's revolutionary for musicians as well. You can reward your mega fans for being there for you, for supporting you. I mean, it's, it's just so much different. You have direct access to your community and to your fans through these NFTs.

And I don't even need to know their names or their address or any of their, you know, PII information that they might not want to share with me. They might choose to share that information with me. But especially for a big brand, that's huge, right? Because, you know, every time you buy something from 7-Eleven, they're asking for your email or whatever. And it's like, I don't want to give you my email.

All your personal information that's completely Completely irrelevant. It doesn't mean anything to unlocking these benefits, and yet you have to give that time and again, right? And this is just a more efficient way of doing it, apart from the privacy. On that note, now a short word from our sponsor, EtherMail, the Web3 email solution. Listen to the end to find out how you can earn 250 EMC tokens and subscribe to Crypto Megan on EtherMail to get exclusive access and updates. The link is in the description below.

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So that was, that was basically my drop for the, for the debut album. So that was August of last year. We sold 2,000 NFTs. 700 supporters purchased them. They were about $97 apiece at that time. It was 0.03 Ethereum. Ethereum was worth more at that time. So it was 60 ETH in 60 seconds or under 60 seconds because it sold out right away. So that was about, you know, just under $200,000.

Wow. And then—

oh my God, wait, let that sink in. Okay.

Right.

You're telling me you made 2,000 different tracks or NFTs, right? And sold those only to 700 people. I mean, people are under the impression that you need millions of fans to make this kind of money and you made What, just under $200,000 in 60 seconds?

Right.

On one drop. I mean, that's, that's mind-blowing.

And it kind of— I had no expectation of this, but it became a case study for the 1,000 fan theory because like that amount of, that amount of revenue is the equivalent of like 40 or 50 million streams on Spotify.

Wow.

I had at that time, I had like I had like fewer than 10,000 streams on Spotify. I had 5— I had 5,500 followers on Twitter. Like, I had very, very little, a very, very small audience, you know, and very, very few streams online.

And you dropped your music at that time when you had so few streams in Spotify. That was when you did this drop at this point. So you're thinking you're not knowing what to expect, right? Because in the traditional world, you do need those millions of streams. Like, what is the difference then in the Spotify model than in the actual NFT model for artists?

And well, the whole— the whole music industry is designed really to— it's driven by ad dollars on, on platforms like Spotify or Apple Music or wherever. So those platforms, they do need millions of people They need millions of eyeballs, millions of ears, millions of users. Right, right, right. And it's funny that we use the word users for for it, but that's what they need. They need millions of people because they make their money selling ads.

Right.

And they sell ads by the millions. It's CPM cost per. I don't know why the M is for thousand. I think it's like Roman or whatever. But it's you know they're selling it based on cost per thousand ads that they're going to sell. So they need a lot of people using. their streaming platforms. But as an indie artist, that's their revenue model. That doesn't have to be your revenue model. Like, if, if you have 1,000 people that really love what you're doing, if you can convert 1,000 people into $100 of merchandise sales per year, you're a 6-figure artist. That's, that's with 1,000 fans.

I mean, you could never do that in the traditional world. What does an artist get paid on Spotify, for example?

I think it's $0.003 per stream.

I mean, it just blows my mind. And listening to this now, it feels like everybody who's listening, who's a musician in this position who wants to grow, who wants to be able to fund themselves, I mean, this is ideal. How many followers or fans, true fans, we'll call them, you know, audience, would you say an up-and-coming musician had to have to make some kind of an impact or Well, definitely 1,000.

You know, 1,000 is like tried and true. If you have 1,000 people that really mess with you, really support you, like you can do well, you know, in the NFT space, like especially during a bull market, you know, you could do well with even fewer than that. Like I had really great timing. That's the—

Yeah, I mean, that helps. But at the same time, it really doesn't have to influence it all that much if they're fans of your music. And they're going to then have this direct access to you. And they understand that this is a 2-way value bridging factor, right? Like, so you can give them value, they can give you value. Man, that's valuable in whatever market conditions, right?

For sure. For sure. Yeah, it's just about communicating that and then the onboarding process. And one of my advantages was and is that I wasn't trying to convert a Web2 audience and onboard them into Web3. I pretty much was speaking to and making music for people that already were into NFTs, already collecting NFTs, you know, because I'm the CryptoPunk rapper, you know. So that was a huge advantage and still is, where now I'm like trying to circle out and build bridges with Web2 artists and, and, you know, get my music in front of Web2 audiences. So I'm kind of reverse engineering what most artists are trying to do as they enter the Web3 space.

Right. I think that's cool though. I think that's definitely an interesting take on it. And so just how easy is it to buy one of these NFTs? If I were to pick my phone up now and check out your collection, for example, I wanted to use this on my podcast.

Okay. My collection, very easy.

Yeah.

You can go to my website, spottywifi.com or spottywifi.io.

Right.

And my, my main collections are all right at the top there. OpenSea is the most, you know, most popular way to buy. So it'll link you to OpenSea.

So I'm, I'm on OpenSea right now. I just went through your website. I'm looking at your song All Time High. But this is the one you did with Bun B.

Yes.

And it's the 8-bit. So it's kind of like video game themed and stuff. Yeah. How about I just buy this right here and now so we can show everybody how easy this actually is and how instant it is? So now If I go to buy this thing, I now own this NFT. Body Wi-Fi, all-time high, Bun B. I'm gonna loop this in here so you guys can see just how revolutionary this is because this is really, really, really cool. I'm gonna use that song now in my podcast and I have the rights to this that I can sublet this now and I also have access to you so you can give me exclusive access to behind the scenes or whatever value you want to provide for your users as well, right?

Absolutely.

And yeah, you can even go, if you go on my Discord, you can get, I'll I'll give you the instrumental. This is for anybody, you know, anybody that has one of these tokens. I'll give them the instrumental, I'll give them the stems, the a cappellas, whatever they want. You could do remixes. Um, and we have a 7-inch vinyl single of that song coming soon that you'll be able to claim.

Oh yeah.

That'll be, that'll be very soon.

Oh, now part of the Spotty Wi-Fi Club.

Yes, that's dope.

Thank you.

Yeah. And, um, you know, You know, as we wrap this up, you now, I mean, your level of success and how fast you've been able to rise in this industry as a rapper, as the one and only CryptoPunk rapper, has been sensational. And you've been able to work with top-tier artists. I mean, Bun B, I know you've met Snoop Dogg once, and I actually was around when he dropped his NFTs connected to his Bored Ape, all this music that Snoop made, and I fucking, I loved it. I was like, this is mind-blowing. And I, I went and got like 5 of his songs and planned on using it in my content and stuff. And so he actually says in one of the Spaces, the Twitter Spaces, he just jumped on, gave you the biggest compliment of your career.

Yeah.

He actually highlights the fact that you brought this to his attention, right? That you were the one that helped him understand. I'm just gonna play a little bit of this clip because this is just incredible. I mean, this is, this is what Web3 is to me. You're just one degree of separation and where in the traditional world for an artist to reach these kind of mega artists and to collaborate with them, it just wouldn't be possible. Not in the same way, not in the same rhythm. I mean, we're all kind of like brought together on the same playing field, so to speak, with NFTs and Web3 because it's new for everybody.

For sure.

So this is a clip from the Spaces.

Yeah, that's Spotty, boss. Hey, Spotty, you are inspiration over here. You got to know that. We're going to tell everybody the story because they may not know. When we got off into this, we called Spotty because Spotty's the number one guy and we respect him. And he had came over here and did some music, you know, showed us love and basically welcomed us into the blockchain. We, we, we like to say that you like the motherfucking, uh, you the, you the top dog over here, you know what I'm saying? So we fuck with you and we love what you doing. You gave us the inspiration.

When they see me So he gets on And he says that, you know, he gives you this shout-out. He's like, Spotty's the guy, man. He really inspired me. What did you feel in that moment when this megastar— I mean, this is, you know, during— you and I were pretty much the same age, and he was so big growing up. What did that feel like?

It felt really validating, like, because I had wanted to meet him Like I met him, but I didn't get to like you know really get as much time with him as I would have liked. And so when that moment happened, it was just like the universe. It was it was one you know this whole journey I've been on. It's like if I if I had gotten what I wanted in my whole life, this moment wouldn't happen. You know what I mean? If if I had gotten If I had had success in the music industry a decade ago, I probably wouldn't have stumbled into this. If I would have met Snoop and been able to chop it up with him for an hour in his studio when I thought it might happen, that moment, that very public moment wouldn't have happened.

Yeah, I think that sometimes when you're struggling or you're going through something difficult or you feel like you're not making progress, then I have these thoughts too. I think, but if I were to jump right to the successful part of my career, I wouldn't be who I am.

Right.

Like, you wouldn't. It's all about the journey.

It's all about the journey. And so, yeah, that was the main thing I was just feeling. I was actually like, it was kind of late on the East Coast when that happened, and my wife was getting ready for bed and I was in the living room on the couch. And as soon as he started talking and like addressing me, I like jumped up. I ran to the bedroom. I was like, babe, you know who he's talking about?

You got to check this out, man. I just got a shout out from Snoop.

So it was just super humbling and just really validating because everybody, you know, everybody loves Snoop. And in the NFT world, people are very cynical and like skeptical of big, big names entering the space. But even in this very skeptical Web3 world, people love Snoop because he really led. But he led as a collector really first. Like he bought, you know, he owns at least one CryptoPunk, he owns Bored Apes, he owns a bunch of metaverse land. Like he didn't just come in and say, let me start selling shit, you know?

Right, right, right. So he did it in a meaningful way. It's like the first time in the history of crypto, really, that NFTs have come along and celebrities can get involved in a meaningful way that actually helps the community.

So yeah, it was, it was incredibly validating, like, to have that in front of the, you know, the whole internet and the Web3 world because he's not, he's, he's not just anyone, you know, he's, he's Uncle Snoop for a reason.

Yeah, that's amazing. And congratulations on that.

Thank you.

I want to hear your up-and-coming plans, what they're going to be. I know you've been making music here in Hollywood, in LA, where we are now. But so for anybody watching this who's an up-and-coming artist, maybe they're struggling, maybe they're afraid to put their work out there to the world. What kind of advice would you give them? Because also they might look at you and say, oh, I missed the boat on this now. Or they might feel that anxiety of, I'm too far behind. And to give a shout out to this guy, his name is Nick, Nifty Nick. He hosts the Nifty Alpha Show. I don't know if you've met him, but— Oh yeah.

Yeah.

At the Gary Vee thing in Minnesota, he said, I remember this moment and it really impacted me. She said, you know, there's so many people making podcasts and content. I mean, there's not room for everybody. And he just looked at her and he was like, well, if that's the attitude we're going to have, we might as well all just pack up and go home and forget it. Right? So what kind of advice would you give? to these artists, up-and-coming artists?

Well, just in general, I would say, like, yeah, put, put your music out there. Like, I know there's a lot of musicians that they're just sitting on music and they're hesitant to put it out, you know, and there's probably a lot of reasons for it. Like, maybe you're waiting for the right moment or you feel like there's going to be— there's going to be this light that's going to shine down and it's going to tell you, like, it's time to drop your music. But like, in reality, like, just put it out there, you know, like, I always come back to the Kanye quote where he's like, you know, I didn't always have hot beats. You know what I mean? Like, like I couldn't always— like my raps weren't always good, you know? Even now, like a lot of people, like, you know, check my mentions. Like everybody doesn't love my raps, but, you know, there's like, there's like 1,000 people that do.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's all you need, right? 1,000 true fans.

Yeah.

Is all you need.

And that's it. And the feedback Even the stuff that you put out where people will tell you, like, people will give you feedback and it might not be the feedback you want, but if you just stay persistent, it'll make you stronger. Even your biggest haters will make you stronger just because you'll wanna prove them wrong. And so I would say, yeah, number one, don't be shy about putting your work out. Don't be waiting for the perfect moment. Even I'm guilty of this.

Yeah.

And then when it comes to Web3, when it comes to Web3, it's almost the opposite advice. I would say be patient. Like, don't come in, don't like, don't start researching Web3 on a Monday so that you can sell your NFT collection on Friday, right? Like, it is possible to do that because now it's easier to mint than ever before. It's easier to create NFTs than ever before. But at the end of the day, the people that will collect your NFTs are people that want to support you as a person, as an individual, people that love your story, people that love your purpose of why you're doing what you're doing. And so you really, just like when you're starting out and you're trying to book your first gig, you know, you got to, you got to meet people one by one and build your, build your core fan base brick by brick. It's the same thing in Web3.

Break down doors and go everywhere. Have persistence.

Yes.

Consistency and be persistent and not give up and believe in yourself. One of my favorite songs of yours actually is called Believer.

Yeah, Believer.

Is it that? And you made some lyrics. How did they go about, you didn't believe in me now, but what was the part?

Yeah, it's like, they used to love to ignore me. Now they know they can't afford me.

Yeah, that was— I heard that and I was like, man, this is— your lyrics are so— people can, I feel, connect with it so much and identify with it. So I can't wait for everybody to hear your music. I know you're going to be even bigger than you are now. I don't know what your plans are. I've heard you say that you're really just content actually being a niche artist and having a comfortable life. But we'll see where your career leads you because I truly think that you might be headed for something even bigger than you could ever imagine. Right?

Well, I mean, I'm content, but content doesn't mean that I don't have bigger ambitions. I really think of Spotty Wi-Fi as a character that's way bigger than me. You know, like, I, I draw— like, I think about when Walt Disney was first making Mickey Mouse. You know, he was drawing Mickey Mouse. He was the voice of Mickey Mouse. He was probably holding the camera, holding the light, like, doing everything.

Yeah.

And of course, Mickey Mouse, the character, is immortal. Like, it outlived Walt Disney. It'll outlive everybody alive today, you know? And that's how I think about the character Spotty Wi-Fi. I, you know, introduced Spotty to the world as a rapper because that's just something that I know how to do. But, you know, next year there's going to be a lot more rap music. There's going to be dance music. Spotty's going to be DJing. You know, there's a comic book in the pipeline.

Oh.

And I really think Spotty— Spotty Wi-Fi, the CryptoPunk metaverse rapper, I don't think there's any format of, of content or storytelling that he can't exist in. And the reason I say that is because Spotty is like a big idea to me. The reason I bought— the reason his name is Spotty WiFi is because he has spots on his face. The CryptoPunk literally has a trait called Spots, and that is a trait that was undervalued because, you know, people think it's like some, you know, is it acne, is it freckles, or is it some trait?

They don't know quite how to place it.

Right. So So it's actually a rare trait. There's only 124 CryptoPunks that have spots. And if you compare how rare it is to other traits, it was like on discount. It was like underpriced. And that's why I bought it.

You had the conviction and being like, okay, this one is undervalued, right?

And I just— and as I developed the character Spotty WiFi, I felt like that's something everyone can relate to. Everybody has something about them, whether it's physically or just, you know, the way they talk or walk, their Midwest accent, whatever it is. Everybody has something that the world would point at and say like, that's not perfect or that's not—

That's a flaw.

That's a flaw. But if you just own it, then that's when you're in your greatest confidence and just potential, because that's what makes you an individual. And the rest of the world just has to deal with it. It's not for you to deal with. That's just who you are.

That's amazing. Spotty, I think on that note, we can't top that. We're going to leave it here. Hopefully go get some behind the scenes now of you making more music. here in LA. Show 'em how it's done. Thank you so much for being here with us today, and I cannot wait to see how your career unfolds and to keep following your journey.

Thank you for having me. It's my pleasure.