5 Artists Who Paved The Way For NFTs in 2021 – [Read]

2021 has been a whirlwind for artists. With the pandemic showing its prevalence throughout the year, artists have struggled to keep their earnings up. Major streaming services provide fractions of a penny for every listen, and many artists are tired of the current model. With this, the implementation of NFTs was introduced into the dance music space and has been generating a massive amount of attention.

NFTs, or Non-Fungible Tokens, are simply unique digital collectibles that are backed by blockchain technology so that it is singularly owned and authenticated. While it was first just used on digital art pieces like 16 bit drawings and other illustrations, the grounds have shifted dramatically. Now, songs, concerts, and even full-length albums are being distributed as NFTs. 

This year is marked as the start of something new in the space of music ownership and artist payments. With the tokenization of nearly every aspect of music, artists are able to take their careers into new fields. This wouldn’t have been possible without the artists who took the first leap into the new digital frontier— check out five artists who paved the way for NFTs in 2021. 

3LAU:

3LAU made waves early this year when news broke that he had made the largest NFT sale to date. In late February, Justin Blau, better known by his stage name 3LAU, decided to list 33 NFTs that marked the 3-year anniversary of album, ‘Ultraviolet.’ What was originally looking like an ordinary sale that would go for around $1 million quickly changed when a looped time reset to T-minus 3 minutes of the auction every time someone put in a bid caused the final price to reach $11.7 million. Since then, he has developed an NFT platform for music that would let token owners receive a royalty. The platform, Royal, has now received $16 million to kickstart it in the industry. 3LAU’s groundbreaking work in the space of NFTs and music has truly revolutionized the industry. 

Deadmau5:

The legendary producer revolutionized electronic music when he hit the scene in the early 2000s. Come 2021 and here he is still, finding new ways to disrupt the field. Being a longtime advocate for a new frontier in music, Deadmau5 has proven his desire to see a reconfigured music industry. Whether it’s participating in virtual concerts in Fortnite, raising money for the leading music metaverse, or selling a song with Portugal the Man exclusively as an NFT, the music titan is constantly working for a better tomorrow in Web3. 

Steve Aoki: 

Steve Aoki has developed a knack for seeing what’s going to be hot before it is. That’s what has made him so successful in music for the past two decades. He is still doing so today, diving into all that Web3 has to offer with NFTs, virtual concerts, and the metaverse. Earlier this year, Aoki sold an NFT collection with visual artist Maciej Kuciara, showing some new capabilities of what an NFT can encompass. Since then, we’ve seen him perform in virtual concerts, headline metaverse shows, and even develop an NFT marketplace with Todd McFarlane. 

Adventure Club: 

The iconic duo showed their appreciation for NFTs early in the game when they released a collection featuring three unique pieces of work from their career. This was much earlier than many other artists in EDM, going on sale in December of 2020. This embarking into the new space allowed for many other artists to see the potential to monetize key pieces of work and make some serious profit. The iconic duo has since dove further into the space with one member developing an NFT clothing brand. Adventure Club helped set the tone for NFTs and is sure to be a blueprint for those to come.

Don Diablo: 

While he might not have been the first to enter the space of NFTs, Don Diablo definitely made a huge splash when he minted the first-ever full concert, which sold for approximately $1.3 million. This token was unlike any other, as it featured an intense Sci-Fi animation experience titled “Destination Hexagonia,” and a physical hexagon box that held a usb drive with the only HD copy of the concert. Pushing the boundaries even further recently, the enthusiastic artist developed an NFT that was accompanied by a gigantic spaceship-like structure that the owner could step inside. This work was recently sold and is being housed in a museum alongside renowned artists such as Basquiat, Banksy, and Andy Warhol. Don Diablo’s consistent push for what’s possible in the space is the ingenuity that many will continue to look at for inspiration.

The grounds for artists to distribute their work is drastically shifting, and with the implementation of NFTs into the field, there could be huge changes in the near future. This seems to be only the start of a change for artists to sell their work in ways never before seen, and we all have the five artists above to thank for their groundbreaking steps in the world of NFTs.