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Like royalty: Why Indonesian musicians are turning to NFTs to sell music
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Psychedelic: The artwork for Discokid909's music NFT "Senpai B Ghost". The artist finds members of the NFT community to be really supportive of each other. (Discokid909's HEN page. Artwork by Ykha Amelz) (Discokid909's HEN page/Artwork courtesy of Ykha Amelz)
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em>Although it is still in its early phase, music NFT has caught the attention of Indonesian artists and collectors alike, turning them into believers of the system.
In the past few years, non-fungible tokens (NFT), a digital asset stored on a blockchain, have been gaining popularity among art collectors and artists alike. But it was in 2021 that NFTs really started to rise in prominence, thanks to a number of mind-blowing, high-value transactions, including the highest one to date: in March, the digital artist Beeple sold an NFT of one of his artworks for a whopping US$69 million.
Musicians followed suit as well, with American rock band Kings of Leon and electronic musician Steve Aoki becoming among the early adopters who made millions of dollars from selling their music as NFTs.
Are these kinds of numbers sustainable? Maybe not. Those artists were already popular internationally, so their involvement in NFTs was guaranteed to do well enough. But what about smaller, relatively less-known musicians from other parts of the world? Do NFTs offer them any benefits?
Jakarta-based singer/songwriter Ananda Badudu thinks so. Ananda has only released one music NFT, a 48-second audio excerpt of his single “Angkat dan Rayakan” (Raise and Celebrate), featuring a visual companion by artist Gata Mahardika. To his surprise, all 27 editions of the NFT sold out in just two days.
Sold for one tezos (a type of cryptocurrency) per edition, which at the time was equivalent to Rp 71,240 (US$5), Ananda made roughly Rp 1.9 million from his debut NFT. It’s a number that Ananda deems “a lot for just two days” especially compared to the Rp 569,922 royalty that he has gotten from his other single after a year of digital streaming.
