Hello everyone, welcome to Art Unframed episode 1.
This is the first podcast episode and I'm going to be talking about different topics
that have to do with Web3, Arts and NFT.
And today I'm talking about collaboration over competition.
And right here with me is Sierra and Static Motion.
Sierra is the curator for Itan World and we have Static Motion, the curator for SolSixNine.
the artist collective and we'll be talking more about that in relation with the topic.
So, good morning Sierra.
Good morning, happy weekend.
Happy weekend, how are you doing?
I'm doing well.
I have been moving into a new space the last day which has been very tiring so I'm looking
forward to hopefully relaxing some this weekend.
How are you doing?
What's up with you?
I'm doing great.
I'm just kind of like, the weekend is ending and everything is kind of like 4pm here but
yeah, it's a great way to end the day.
4pm on a Saturday and your weekend is ending, you must be getting old, huh?
I don't really go out much.
I feel you, me either.
Yeah.
So, what have you been up to, I mean today?
Just situating my new apartment, trying to put everything in its place.
I just had my breakfast.
It's only 11am here, I'm in New York.
I had a bagel and some coffee, it was delicious.
A bagel is like a New York staple.
Like if you're a New Yorker, bagels and pizza are essential.
That's great.
Actually, I've been, today I just kind of like was co-hosting a space for a bit and
then I went to charge my devices so that I can be kind of like ready for the space and
everything.
Where are you in Nigeria?
Lagos.
Lagos, okay.
How's your electricity been?
It's good, it's good.
Compared to some places, it's good.
I don't really make use of generator or anything.
I love that for you.
Fantastic, that means our space won't be interrupted.
Yeah, you can be sure about that.
I want to say hi to SolSixnine, Static, how are you doing?
Good, welcome to Lagos.
I'm doing great, yeah.
Happy weekends.
How are you doing?
I didn't understand you from your children.
No, no, no.
They luckily, they had some things to do today that was outside of my realm of normally needing
to be involved.
So we're good.
I've got a few hours here actually to get done things around the house and get caught
up on some work.
So it's all good, it's going to be a good Saturday, a productive Saturday for sure.
I would like to first introduce myself, Vulkan.
I'm an artist from West Africa, Nigeria and I'm the host for Art on Front.
Yeah, so today I want to kind of like start with like a couple of questions.
So Sierra, you're an artist, you're also like a curator and everything.
I wanted to start with how Itan World started, like the origin of Itan World.
Can you talk about it?
Sure, I'm happy to.
So Itan was created at the end of August, early September last year, 2023.
It's interesting because I didn't even set out on a mission to create Itan.
I am an artist and I had like my first few series of like big sales in the space.
And like many of us do when we have Ethereum to spend, we make like a show thread.
So I made this post and I was like, I have this money to spend, I want to buy some art,
show me your art.
And I got so many responses, obviously way more responses than I could actually buy.
But through that post, I bought some awesome art and I had so many responses from Nigerian
and West African artists, so many.
And then something just kind of clicked in my head and I was like, why aren't these,
first of all, why aren't these artists, like why have I never seen some of this work before?
Why is it not like visible and elevated and appreciated in the space?
And why haven't these artists from this small geographic area come together to create a
community to help each other spread awareness about their culture and the art that they're
making?
So that was what happened at the end of August, it was around my birthday.
I'm a Virgo and I actually share a birthday with a Nigerian friend who's a musician.
His name is Jinmi Abdulls.
And I asked him, I was like, I have all these awesome Nigerian artists that responded to
my post.
Can you help me go through the responses to this and curate an exhibition from it that's
just Nigerian and West African art?
And he said yes, and together from, I don't know, I think we had probably over 150 West
African artists that responded.
We ended up selecting 47 artists that made up the initial Itan exhibition that we called
Cohort One that we released at the end of that year.
The other kind of personal connection in terms of why I have interest in West African art,
as I mentioned, I'm from New York.
I am like the quintessential New York combination.
My dad is African American and my mom is Puerto Rican and Italian.
My mom being Puerto Rican and Italian, I feel very close to those cultures.
My grandpa was born in Puerto Rico, my great grandmother was born in Italy.
My mom makes food from both cultures.
But as many Black people know here in America, due to the nature of how we got here, there's
a disconnection from our African heritage.
And a lot of us just either don't know where we came from or don't understand the roots
of our African culture.
So through, God, this last few years, I discovered through ancestry and DNA testing, which is
widely available and pretty damn accurate, that I'm not just from anywhere in Africa.
I'm from West Africa and specifically Nigeria and that my ancestors are Yoruba.
And Itan is a Yoruba word for story or history, which I felt was fitting considering the fact
that we're amplifying the culture.
So internally too, I felt like it was like a self discovery and like just like a reconnecting
with a part of my heritage that I felt disconnected from for a long time.
So that's the story of how Itan came to be and now we're almost 200 artists.
Yeah, that is amazing.
You know, I'm actually kind of like really curious how you've been able to manage that
amount of artists, like 200 artists in one group and everything.
How were you able to manage that?
Like what were the challenges?
I mean, the biggest challenge is that I'm only one person and I'm not going to lie though.
Like I have an incredible team, but there's only so much we can do even as just a few
people.
Like we have a chief of staff, Gideon, who's in Ghana, who's incredibly helpful.
We have a social media manager and graphic designer, Astro, who's in Lagos.
We have a creative director, Jay, who's in Lagos, but still just between the four of
us, it's a lot to do.
So the biggest challenge is just like, I can't always be immediately available for everyone
who needs help or direction.
But the great thing about there being so many people in the community is that the artists
are very good at helping each other.
And I always encourage the artists, like we have a group chat that has everyone in the
chat and I'm like, if you're struggling with something, if you need help, if you don't
know how to do something, of course you can come to me.
But if I'm not getting back to you quick enough, like go to the chat, like ask the community
and they're really good about helping each other and pointing each other in the right
direction.
So Nigerians are just hilarious.
So that chat is just unhinged and ridiculous and just very entertaining for all of us.
I'm going back to that.
Speaking of like the number of artists that are in the collective, I feel like I say 97%
are Nigerians and then we have artists from Cameroon and other parts of West Africa.
Have you been able to kind of like find artists from other regions apart from Nigeria?
You're correct.
It is mostly Nigerians.
We do have, we have a few artists from Cameroon.
We have a few artists from Benin.
I'm actually working with a Cameroonian artist on an exhibition that'll open within the next
month.
Everyone is welcome for, well, not for some reason, for obvious reasons.
One of them being that the local currency in Nigeria, Naira, has lost a lot of value
over the last few years.
Nigerians are very crypto forward and Nigeria is very, despite the government not giving
it its blessing, many Nigerians either trade cryptocurrency in hopes of making US dollars
or pounds or some other currency that's more valuable than their own.
Or many Nigerians are creatively talented in some way, either making visual art, music
and use the blockchain as a way to monetize their creativity.
I'm not saying that the neighboring countries don't have these same issues, but Nigeria
does kind of have a unique set of challenges in terms of what makes it more appealing to
Nigerians, I think, than other West Africans.
But we are actively looking for more West African artists from neighboring countries.
So please, if you know someone in Benin, Cameroon, any of the neighboring countries, send them
my way.
We'd love to have them.
Yeah.
Thank you for sharing about the origin, Sierra.
I still have like more questions, but I want to first say hi to Kafany.
I just push off, she's the co-host for today.
Hello, Kafani.
Hi, Vulcan.
Hi, Sierra.
Hi.
𝐒𝐨𝐥𝐒𝐢𝐱𝐍𝐢𝐧𝐞.
Hi, everybody.
Hope you guys are doing well today.
I'm Kafany from Nigeria, Vulkan's co-host.
But today, nice to have you guys here.
Thank you, Kafani.
Tell everyone about yourself so we can go forward.
Okay, about myself.
I don't know about myself.
Okay.
I am Kafany, a Nigerian-based or Nigerian photographer, creative director.
I just like taking photographs and I enjoy it as my hobby.
I'm currently exploring a lot of things right now.
Oh, yes, I'm a college student too.
Yeah, that's basically what I am.
I don't know.
I'm so shy to talk about myself right now.
But yeah, I'm part of Sierra's Itan world and that's where I met Vulcan and Adam and
other amazing creatives.
Yeah, that's just basically who I am.
Yeah.
Thank you guys for coming on.
Yeah, basically.
Thank you, Kafani.
Yes, Kafani is not shy.
Let's continue this space.
You will see.
They're going to see.
So, Static, can you tell us about the origin of Solsixnine?
Like, tell us how it started?
Sure.
Yeah.
Sure. Yeah, so basically, right after Tezpole last year, there was a group of us that just decided that, you know, being on one blockchain wasn't really a solid idea.
And, you know, that we wanted to try and explore and check out some other areas and just see how we could kind of like spread out our art a little bit and photography and things like that.
So there was, there's about four of us that started. It was myself, Jimmy Albert, Claire Ujma, and Saeed Shah.
So, basically, we just started like a little DM group, and we kind of like, just went over there and started talking about like how to, you know, break into Solana, and then, I don't know if you guys know Charlie, Deftoni, but he was kind of like our, I guess our in with Solana because he had been minting over there for a while.
You know, back about probably a year or two ago and then, you know, he knew a bunch of people so we kind of just started connecting with people and then we kind of just started basically snowballing into a pretty large now DM group and then we did a curation with with Sol City, and that kind of, you know, spawned into the Sol 6.9 branding.
So, it started as a joke, we ended up having like 69 artists that were all doing this curation because we opened it up and didn't like, you know, there was no like qualification and we didn't like gatekeep anything, we were just like whoever wants to come can come and it wound up that there were 69 of us that wanted to all curate so like you see some of us down there like you see Ada and, you know, Kadi and Liza and of course Vulcan here as well.
And then basically we just wind up. Like I said we want to do in this curation with Sol City and I kind of assisted with that and then after that we just kind of hang out you know we're supporting each other.
You know there's not like a, there's no leader like we joke around and we call ourselves like a cabal because basically it's like we just were like this chaotic symphony.
And then at some point if you guys know see a sense she was like, she compared us to like a mix match mix match socks, and so that we're like a chaotic symphony of artists where like the only reason why we get along is because we're all so different and what we do but we all accept kind of who we are
and what we want to do, moving into different blockchains and through whatever we do with our creativity so yeah so that's a little bit of the background. But yeah, so I'm Matt you can see my other profile that static motion but I've been around for a while, you know, so yeah, that's that's a little bit but, you know, like I said we're just we're having fun and we're sometimes doing our own thing and sometimes doing things together and I do a little curating on drip house.
You know with some different artists and that's just another kind of way to try and bring some visibility to people with anything that we can do. So we're all we're all supporting each other.
Thank you for sharing static.
I do have a question on how do you normally kind of like vets the artists and the collective.
So, I've been around for a little while and when I originally started with, you know crypto I started over on the BSC, and I just, it's like a toxic super toxic environment over there and it's just a lot of people that were flipping meme coins and rugs and like, I probably literally saw it all,
but it's just, it was just a crazy, not so great area to be in I guess back in 21 so like when I came over and I realized like NFTs were like a completely different vibe and I, I've been, I was back then I was like putting some stuff on blockchain as an NFT just some photos.
And then I found some different artists and different, like, NFC projects that I really love so anyway so I realized it was like a totally different, you know, vibe and world and then, you know, but because I've seen it all like I am pretty, you know, fluid and looking at the blockchain
and, you know, seeing kind of what's going on behind the scenes and there's tons of stuff that you'd probably be shocked seeing so yeah like if somebody wants to join like as long as you're, you know, backed with integrity and you know you're, you know, going to respectfully, you know, engage with other people
and you're a good person and you're more than welcome to join, you know, but if somebody throws a name in my direction and three clicks later I see, you know, watch trading and, you know, them buying their own pieces on the blockchain and doing some crazy stuff then I'm usually not going to be so willing to say
hey welcome aboard right because, you know, anybody we put our names on is a reflection of us, so I'm certainly not going to ever, you know, bring people in that don't have integrity, I mean that would just be me losing integrity so that's kind of my stance on it but
everybody's got their own way doing it and, you know, that's fine.
Thank you. And this next question I'm going to kind of ask is kind of like for the both of you, like, what's a memorable moment that you kind of like remember from the early days of the collective like since you started it.
I'll start with you, Sierra.
What's the memorable moment to kind of like remember from eight onwards.
Goodness is actually really hard to choose. I have like two things in my head that are kind of competing with each other. The first is the first time we had a physical exhibition in Nigeria.
We had three this year in Abuja, and I just remember so much anxiety and stress leading up to putting it together especially because I'm so far away.
And I just had to trust and rely on my team to like pull through and make it happen.
And probably I see there's like I don't know at least eight people from our collective that are listening there are probably a few people listening that actually went to the physical exhibition in Abuja.
The first one that we did was binary opposition, and we worked with countervail art gallery and it was a bunch of black and white photography.
That was just like my first that was my first physical exhibition that I put together ever so like printing the stuff that goes on the wall and like making sure the little tags for the artworks were right like it was just, it was a lot.
But it worked out and it came together and I was just I was it was such a sigh of relief. Once it was over and nothing went wrong and it and it looked good like I was just so proud.
The other thing that comes to mind that's like competing with that moment is the first time that I had artists from Nigeria send me physical artworks to New York, either as a gift or as like a physical counterpart for a digital artwork that I purchased.
It's really nice to observe art on the blockchain and like look at it on a screen when it's digital native I mean that makes the most sense because maybe there is no physical artwork that accompanies it.
But for a lot of Nigerian artists specifically they paint they do work with pencil or ballpoint pen and seeing some of the works in real life just gave me a whole different appreciation for the level of craftsmanship so those moments come to mind.
And of course there have been so many others that I can just keep listing and I'm sure lots of other memorable moments will transpire over the coming years but those are two that come to mind.
I remember you really wanted to go to Nigeria, the time the exhibition was on, but you weren't able to go. Possibly when you get like the next exhibition, would you kind of like be available physically?
I don't want to go. I went as far as booking my flight and my lodging and probably would have went had I not had my visa not been declined twice like it was just a struggle. It was so odd like I didn't.
Nigerians have always told me it's hard to get a visa to go to other places but as an American I just didn't think it would be hard to get a visa to come into the country.
But I think if that goes, maybe because it was my first time trying to go someplace that required a visa maybe I could have went about it in a better way but I don't know. I'm a pretty organized and detail oriented person.
And I was like, what the hell?
I was so pissed.
So that was the main reason why I didn't come was because I didn't want to try and...
People told me like, oh, well, you can just pay the customs agents and they'll let you
in.
And I was like, I'm not going to try and illegally enter a country, my first time going there.
Last thing I need to do is end up arrested or deported or whatever the hell.
So I just decided not to go.
And also at that time in my life, I had a lot of just craziness in my personal life.
I was separating from my ex-husband and that was like really stressful.
And it was a trip that we had planned to take together.
So it was like, the stars just didn't align.
But I do hope that...
We are planning another physical experience in Nigeria called Nija on Chain that we've
been working on.
That'll be more like a more like NFT MYC, like kind of like a Web3 conference situation
with art exhibitions involved.
And I do hope that it's far enough from now that I can actually get my visa and physically
be there.
That would be ideal.
That would be awesome.
I'm actually looking forward to it, like the next one.
And I kind of hope it's in Lagos because that's where I am.
I might be a little bit biased, but that's just it.
Have fun.
Yeah, I was also going to say, please, this is illegal, Ciara.
Be cool.
Be cool, no?
Please.
And it's not biased.
Be cool.
But Abuja people have been enjoying.
It's our turn.
Like, me people president should say.
It's my turn.
You are so funny.
Okay.
Make I come for Nija.
Make I come for Lagos.
Yes, I know.
It's funny you say that because the person in Nigeria who's helping me find the venue
has recommended a space in Lagos.
We did the last three in Abuja, which as you know, although it's the capital, just doesn't
expose you to as many people.
So I do think it's more likely that the next event will be in Lagos.
So keep your fingers crossed that we raise enough money and we can afford it.
Yeah, don't you?
We stay outside.
We outside.
Walk on.
I'm just going to come find my outfit already because nobody can stop my shine.
Oh my God.
And I hope it just turns out very well because all your exhibitions have just been amazing.
I could not make it to the past ones though, because I was having exams and some other
things, but it's always fun to be a part of what you're building.
Yeah, walk on over to you.
All right, Satek, I do kind of like have that same question for you.
So yeah, I hope you've thought of a memorable moment.
Well yeah, I guess like the same thing.
Like there's a lot of good memories and I don't know if I could pinpoint one, but I
mean just thinking right off the top of my head, like some of the things, like obviously
the curation we did when we first came to Solana was, it was awesome.
And I appreciated everybody kind of trusting in what we were trying to do and to get some
of the visibility that we were aiming to get.
And we were kind of welcome with open arms.
And I think that that was probably the best case scenario of how things could have possibly
gone.
And I think that I personally, I mean, I appreciate the people trusting that I wasn't going to
completely screw things up.
I'm like a super analytical and meticulous person sometimes to a fault.
So like the group would always joke around and be like, I had spreadsheets that I would
regularly share in the chats of where people were with their own open editions and the
sale so that we could kind of keep focused on the curation itself so that we could continue
to promote some of the pieces that hadn't sold yet and some of the ones that obviously
had sold, kind of celebrate the sales that were happening and really just meeting new
collectors and everything.
So it was like, I think it was a really unique experience, something that I've not experienced
before.
So that's like a top memory.
But like honestly, like I think daily, I mean, just the interaction in the chat is great.
I mean, like, you know, I'm sure people are in different group chats.
Everybody has like their little clicks and things that they go into.
But you know, for the most part, like we are a very active group.
You know, we are talking to each other like almost all the time.
And it's not like everybody, you know, there's no like obligation.
To be like, oh, you haven't talked in three weeks.
You know, it's time to get you out of here.
It's just, you know, you can come and go as you like.
And people jump in occasionally and people then, of course, you have your people that
regularly communicate.
And, you know, we have our disagreements, just like everybody, which I think is also
great because, you know, it's like I always joke like after like there's a real passionate
conversation, I'll be like, you know, all right, who quit?
You know, it's like you wait because you're like, all right, somebody's going to get mad
and leave.
Right.
But like, really, no one does.
I mean, people have come and gone, but not because of like something that we've necessarily
disagreed over.
Like, I think there was one that left actually to the left because of a disagreement and
they both like huff and puffed and like left.
But like, I just brought them back.
It's like, like, stop being stupid and not leaving because they're active people, like
they're active members.
And then like, you know, they're going to disagree with each other.
So, you know, they both they both came back.
And, you know, like I said, that's fine, too.
So yeah, I think that there's just so many, like I said, there's so many positive memories.
Like there's one day where like Ada, just because I'm seeing her down there, like she's
like, let's sell stuff.
Right.
And like all of a sudden she just starts like overly promoting like other people's work
and like scooping up random pieces from people that are like part of our group.
Right.
And then like people started like, you know, overly supporting her work.
And then we did like a countdown of like, who's going to, you know, sell out these pieces
first.
And I think that's like super it was super like spur of the moment.
Right.
And that stuff happens sometimes.
Like, you know, like I'll be like searching through just, you know, random, whether it's
Tezos on or whatever.
And we'll see, you know, an artist that's almost like sold out of a piece.
And it's just like one of those moments where you're like, I cannot believe that there's
still pieces left on this edition.
And like we'll post in the chat because there's so many of us like within like a few minutes,
a lot of times, like the piece will be gone.
And it's not and it's not us like organizing to like, all of a sudden, like jump on a piece.
It's just like the reality of, hey, look, did you guys see this?
Because I don't know how we missed it.
Right.
And then, you know, just by showing it to each other, because we all love to create
and collect, it's just a matter of, you know, support.
Right.
And getting then something in our wallet that we love.
So, you know, like I said, there's so many moments and memories and things like that
throughout the, you know, the last year that I think it's unfair to pinpoint one.
But, you know, that's just a little bit of kind of how I guess I, how I enjoy it.
But you're free to ask them to.
I mean, I obviously have some people down there and see what they want to know, how
they enjoy it.
Maybe after, you know, whenever you open this up.
So I'm sure they'd love to talk to.
Yes, you know, you're right about like, artists kind of like having some particular form of
disagreements.
It usually happens a lot in, especially in collectives.
Well, so Vulcan, what do you like about being in that group?
Right.
Like, what's your highlight of the group?
Why do you enjoy it?
I really enjoy the group.
Like, and that was kind of like the first reason why I kind of like picked the both
of you because of the way in which you set an example in your collectives and how you
kind of like put it all together.
Very interactive and even up to a year.
It's been a year now.
It's still interactive.
You, the both of you found a system to make it work really well.
And you still, we still find a way to interact with ourselves and talk.
It's not just about like sharing.
Everybody kind of like finds a way to put one or two thoughts about how they feel about
different particular type of topic on the group.
So it's like, yeah, it's just a way to kind of like keep the conversation going.
And at the same time, we've got like different activities going on.
So it's kind of like puts like all the thoughts of like negativity and focus it on something
else positive because it's what you're doing.
Like in your example, you make use of Drip quite well.
And yeah, the way you kind of like push and promote artists on Drip is really great.
And Sierra makes use of foundation, remix and objects.
Yeah, it's just really lovely.
She also makes use of, yeah, she makes use of it.
I'm still going to kind of like talk about by the way, Sierra, how do you, how do you
kind of like do that?
I just want to know.
Like how do you, yeah, how do you do that?
Can I say one more quick thing if you don't mind, just because I want to kind of wrap
up one thing I was saying.
And I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt you.
Yeah, it's okay.
I'll be fine in two seconds.
But like, you know, I think one of the things too that I love is like, I don't, like I said
before, like I joke, you joke about it being a cabal, right?
But like we're talking about, right?
Like even just to bring Drip back, right?
So obviously there's been artists that have been curated there, but one of the artists
had brought up like some of the one-on-ones that haven't sold and talking about some of
the gumball options that are currently available in Mallow, right?
And there isn't, you know, I know that some groups, right?
Like they have like leads, right?
Like people that are like, hey, look, you know, this is the management of whatever the
admin or whatever you want to call it.
But, you know, in that little side chat thing that we have from some of those artists, like
I don't know anything about gumball, right?
So like the first thing I did is like, because people sometimes will be like, well, Matt,
what do you think?
And I'm like, I don't know.
Like you guys run this, like, you know what I mean?
I just kick it right back and say, look, I love the idea, but it's not my idea, right?
Like, this is where other people need to step into and like take some, you know, they take
that ownership, they take the reins on things.
And I think that's strength, right?
Like sometimes some of these groups fall apart because you have one person, well, if one
person is at the top and everybody else is quote unquote at, you know, underneath the
person, then, you know, if that person faults, then what happens, right?
The group falls apart.
But like when no one's at the top, like the group is strong because everybody has the
ability to speak and say and do right and they can, they can curate, they can jump in,
they can take ownership and take the reins anytime they want.
And I think that brings a lot of a lot of strength.
And it's not that people can't, you know, help with that, of course, and support that.
But like, it doesn't have to be me, right?
Like it could be anybody.
So that's anyway, I just wanted to kind of wrap up, but I'm sorry to interrupt and back
to you, Sierra.
Yeah, thank you.
That was really, that was really insightful.
You know, that's I agree.
I agree what you say.
Like, yeah, it's, it's, it's really, it's really lovely how you kind of like put everything
together in the aspects that it's not just kind of like focused on one person.
Because at the same time, there's nobody that's kind of like feeling a bit left out because
of what you do to kind of like carry everybody along.
So yeah, it's one of the things that kind of like keep collective together.
And in the aspect of, yeah, well, first of all, I wanted to add Sierra to this, but I
went on to the other.
Well, first of all, I'll start with this, Sierra, how do you kind of like, yeah, how
do you kind of like resolve a particular type of disagreements of artists in your collective?
Because when you have like that particular number of people in your collective, at one
point in time, you might have like some points of disagreement, somebody is doing something
which the other one doesn't like, and then people trying to kind of like leave or something
because of disagreements.
How do you kind of like solve that?
Yeah, there are a lot of people in the collective in the room.
And I think most of us have witnessed like at least one argument or disagreement in the
group chat.
There was, I specifically remember one time maybe like seven or eight months ago where
there was a person in the chat who made an allegation about a big collector in the space,
but they didn't have any evidence or it was unfounded.
And there were a lot of people in the group that felt like maybe they had just made this
up or it wasn't true.
And there was a lot of discussion around like, is this person trustworthy?
Are they just making up this story to get attention?
So I think the first thing is just like open communication.
I think us having the group chat with everyone creates this channel where not only the team,
but the artists can like express their concerns, whether through a group discussion or regular
check-ins.
It also allows for like transparent mediation.
And when a conflict does escalate, there's neutral parties within the team that are there
to mediate and help facilitate a constructive conversation so that everyone feels heard
and respected and we can reach a mutual resolution.
The other thing too, I think is just like, I don't know, trying to encourage people to
stay respectful of each other as the community grows and reminding everyone of the mission
of Ytan and how every person's contributions support the bigger vision.
I think that this helps like reframe challenges because we can keep in mind that as a community,
we have shared goals and that we're looking, we're always looking for solutions that benefit
the entire collective, not just one person.
Something that's come up a lot, not necessarily even as a conflict, but just like a pain point
has been just the changes with Foundation.
As you mentioned, Foundation is one of our major platform partners that we curate exhibitions
on and over the last five months or so, they've pivoted their resources and teams to Rodeo,
which is a kind of a social networking app, similar to Instagram, which doesn't allow
artists to price their artworks or release one of ones or doesn't allow curators to curate
exhibition experiences.
So that had become a big concern and there was a lot of discussion in the chat about
should I burn my artwork or what's going to happen to the collective?
Are we going to move forward?
Do we still exist?
And there just had to be kind of reassurance in terms of we have a plan, we're still moving
forward, have no fear.
Our success isn't contingent on just Foundation existing.
And I think it's important too to listen to people's concerns and if multiple people feel
like a platform partner isn't strong or doesn't value the community, even if I have good connections
there as a leader, it doesn't make sense to continue prioritizing that partner.
So that being said, I think a lot of it just has to do with open communication, focusing
on the mission.
Also, like setting clear and respectful guidelines for conduct and helping people just again
by being a neutral mediator, following up, being accountable, regularly reflecting and
adapting.
I think all of these things create a supportive and mission aligned process.
Thank you for sharing, Sarah.
Yeah, I think we have questions from two people.
So I want to first kind of like open it up for questions.
I'll first start with Mad Dog.
Yeah.
You have a question?
Yeah, can you hear me?
Yes, I can hear you.
All right.
My name is Eomjerad.
I'm also an artist from Nigeria.
Thank you for this opportunity.
So I've been listening to this space and I heard when Sierra talked about the Niger Unchained.
It's really a nice idea and it's really something I've been looking forward to for Nigerian
artists to have.
So I want to just point out to Sierra that I am also the community manager of PPN Community.
If you check my profile, you also see the high tag date.
So what we actually do at PPN is like getting close to the artists themselves, having connection
with them, both online and in real life.
Like recently, not recently, right now we are hosting an AI film festival.
If you notice, I don't know if you see it on your feeds, AI film festival right now
going on in Arizona.
PPN is also like part of the sponsors for that event.
So I'm just trying to tell Sierra in case the Niger Unchained, when the event is actually
coming close and she's still settling things out, she can definitely reach out to me.
So I can reach out to the founder of PPN who would love to help in terms of sponsorship.
What we actually do is that when such events actually come, we help in sponsorship and
one of the community member goes to the event and get connection with the artist.
So I just want to point it out there to Sierra.
And yes, I'm also in touch with your assistant Gideon.
So I'll also reach out to him on WhatsApp and tell him about this.
That's what I want to point out.
Awesome.
Nice to see you here.
Hello.
Thank you.
I appreciate you.
I know that we've been in touch about a few different things over the last several months
and I know that you're in direct communication with Gideon.
So yes, please do continue to chat with Gideon.
If you can, if you can send him any details as it relates to like what specific information
you would need about the event and such, he'll definitely be your best point of contact.
Thank you for making yourself available and sharing this information.
I appreciate you.
You're welcome.
Sorry.
Yeah.
Thank you, Marduff.
Yeah.
So we have another question from Luna.
Hello, Luna.
Hi, I was able to catch just the end and I was very excited for your space.
And just what I want to drop in quickly, if you need help, what I struggled with on these
spaces is getting it onto Spotify.
So if you need help with the software, let me know and I'll help you with anything you
need to get these onto Spotify.
So it's a little podcast.
But I had a juicy question for Sierra.
Like I don't know much about running collectives.
I've run this sort of like DM rooms, but they never quite grew into collectives.
But I was wondering, did you ever have like, anyone be so anti-social and so dramatic and
shocking that you had to chuck them out?
Did you have anything like that ever?
I mean, you don't have to answer this if you don't want to, because it's a dramatic question.
But I mean, what do you do in that situation?
Has that ever happened to you?
Oh my goodness, that's fine.
I'm laughing because like I said this towards the beginning, and I think this is well known
amongst Nigerians.
Like it's mostly Nigerians.
Like Nigerians are incredibly dramatic people.
So no one is getting booted because they're dramatic, because that would leave me with
no one left in the collective.
And in terms of just like being absurd or being ridiculous, disrespectful, I mean, I
have to be honest, we have a really solid group.
I think because of the nature of the group that we had, like as I mentioned, like these
are artists in a geographic region that don't have a lot of local opportunities and are
using the blockchain to find a creative way to monetize, you know, their art and their
skills.
So inherently, there's just a lot of appreciation and gratitude and wanting to be there.
There's a lot of positivity.
Very rarely do we have anyone who's just unnecessarily nasty or mean.
We have had people voluntarily just remove themselves from the collective for a period
of time, not necessarily because they were upset with anything, but just because life
became overwhelming.
Like we had one person who was pregnant and wanted to deal with their pregnancy and privacy
and asked to be removed from the group chats for a few months just so they could focus
on themselves and their health.
We've had people who have literally just said like the group chat is too overwhelming.
I can't keep up with it.
It gives me anxiety.
I don't want to be in it.
And I've asked to be removed for that reason.
But I am, I'm very grateful.
We have a solid, respectful, encouraging group of people.
And I think that's just the nature of the culture as well.
Thank you for that question, Luna.
Yeah, it's a very good question.
And I would like to put that question out there to static as well.
Sure.
Yeah.
So we've definitely had people the same way that have kind of taken breaks and things
like that.
And we've absolutely heard the same comments about not being able to keep up with the chat.
And my answer to them has always been like, don't worry about it.
When things are popping and moving, there's no way anybody can possibly keep up with some
of these chats.
Because we have right now, I think 121 or 122 artists, something like that.
So you just can't.
And they're all active.
I mean, there's not dead accounts in there or anything.
So you can't possibly keep up all the time.
But to the question of have you removed somebody, yeah.
I mean, there's definitely a rare situation where something pops up, like I talked about
before, where there's an integrity issue that's a play.
Or somebody kind of points out something that's just not something that jives with really
anybody that should be in the space.
So and like I said, it's only happened maybe twice.
And in those two instances, I just booted them.
I mean, I don't need to ask questions.
And they know.
They know.
Right?
So there's really no way to keep that kind of toxicity around.
So it's just not good for anybody.
So yeah, we've had to remove a couple of people.
And that's for the best.
I mean, in a particular type of scenario of, let's say, plagiarism or something?
Yeah.
So that's, you know, honestly, like just finding out that like they're kind of circulating
money through different means that really isn't buying art or collecting art.
It's more about like moving money around and things like that.
And, you know, they're just there's look, there's a there's a group of people that you
know in the space that just aren't good people.
And, you know, you can kind of like once you see somebody over interacting with those people,
like, you know, that like there might be something up.
But like I said before, I mean, you can usually see this stuff by two, three clicks on the
blockchain to see what's going on.
And once you see it, you just kind of kind of back away from it.
So that's that's my stake on it, at least.
But but most people, like I said, that this is most people are not like there's so many
good people.
So like, don't that's the very that's the exception to the rule.
Right.
But when it happens or if it happens, then yeah, you got to you got to part ways.
Right.
Because, you know, they'll be they'll be showing stuff in your in your group and telling
people to buy their art and maybe their arts to Vulcan's.
But maybe it's not even their art.
Right.
So you got to you got to exit that quickly.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Luna, do you have another question?
Yeah.
Sorry, if this was already covered.
And sorry, I just got robbed.
My phone ran out of battery.
I'm on charge now.
But yeah, so if you're kind of starting collective, that's not just kind of a bohemian collective
like IRL, where you just meet and share art.
How do you kind of even get started to kind of do you start collecting people's work and
then kind of invest in it?
Do you need like how would you get started to do it on crypto?
I'll jump in.
I look so we were a very organic group of people that most of us knew each other beforehand.
So there wasn't like a collect here to get here or there's like there's no like obligation
to collect people's work.
Is that what you're asking?
Because I just want to make sure I understand the question first.
Yeah, kind of like I'm wondering, like, can I just get cool people together and then see
how we vibe?
Or does it need to have more structure?
Like, I need to be kind of promoting them somehow, giving some kind of value otherwise
people get bored and leave.
Yeah, so I mean, look, I'm like sometimes hesitant to even say like we're collective,
even though I guess technically we are.
But like if you like look at the definition of it, but like, and that's why we like we
always joking call ourselves a cabal, right?
Because I don't want I don't like putting labels on things like, you know, I don't like
the whole like, where my hashtag and I'll buy your art or, you know, do this for me
and I'll do this for you.
And I just think that's like a shitty way to be.
So yeah, there's no like obligations.
And look, I think that we are probably like it is just a very organically formed group.
I mean, it's just like we all knew each other from like various different circles that we
were in or we were connected to people.
So you know, we were just kind of like people would DM me because I had like, you know,
the ability to pull people in and they'd be like, hey, I know this person from X, Y and
Z. Right.
And they're a good person.
And then I would just do a very quick overview of their account to make sure that nothing
looks weird.
And you know, that obviously that we're not pulling anybody in that's going to, you know,
be an integrity issue, like I said before, and then we just pull them in.
Right.
But because we do that that way, like it's not there's no obligation of anything, you
know, but you know, we all just support that.
I don't know how else to put it like, yeah, I wouldn't overthink it.
Right.
Like if you're trying to create a group of like people that are like minded to yourself,
then just create the group of people that are like minded to yourself.
Don't worry about putting a label on it.
Right.
Like the only reason why this has a label at all was because we did this curation and
just we all thought it was hysterical that there were 69 artists.
And then it kind of like formed into this, it's a this PFP in this account.
But it was like, as I made the account, I was like laughing, making it right.
And I'm like, oh my God, I'm like, we're the soul six nine.
Right.
And it's it's ridiculous.
And then, of course, I I'm just overly neurotic about things.
I'm like, well, now we'll make a website and I'll put all of all of the artists on the
website.
Right.
And like I posted up at the top, like I put I like sent every artist as part of our group
in a PFP.
Right.
And I don't know who's familiar with Solana, but if you're familiar with some of the things
that go on in Solana, you can you know that you can like literally put a piece of art
in somebody's wallet that they can't burn, they can't transfer it, they can't sell it,
they can't do anything for it.
Right.
And of course, if they want it moves like I moved it into their wallets.
But the reason why I did it was because I wanted people to be able to find good artists.
Right.
So like if you go to that link at the top that has the links from Solana, like you'll
literally click on those and it's going to take you right to the artists wallet that
are part of the group.
But not only are part of the group like they they're they're vetted for integrity.
Right.
And we're just as we can because no one knows for sure who somebody is.
But you know that that's just another way to help to showcase people.
But I think we're all focused on stuff like that.
So yeah.
Thank you, Static.
Sierra, you want to say something?
Yeah, I just wanted to address Luna's question from kind of a different perspective because
it is a formal collective with a clear mission to elevate and preserve the voices of West
African underrepresented artists.
And for us, it is essential to offer meaningful value to the artists in our community because
it keeps them engaged and it helps them thrive.
And there are a lot of different ways you can do that.
I mean, for some collectives, maybe it is just as simple as getting together in a chat
and sharing each other's posts.
We do value marketing and promotion for our artists because it helps them reach a wider
audience and connect with potential collectors.
But beyond that digital exposure, we emphasize curating their work for in-person exhibitions.
We have a show coming up in New York City where we're going to bring at least 10 of
our artists into a new space and new community.
The other thing that's sometimes helpful is if your community is active on a specific
blockchain or marketplace, like for example, Soul6 is on Solana, them having a good relationship
with Soul City or the Solana Foundation might help them secure different opportunities for
their community.
So like Eitam being on Foundation, oftentimes we can secure homepage placement on our partner
marketplace to help boost visibility for artists and make sure they're seen by the right audiences.
And the other thing too, you mentioned about being a patron of the artists in the collective.
If you organize a collective and you have the means to collect work from the group,
do you do so?
And I mean, I think it just depends on your values, your budget, obviously.
If your budget allows for it, I first entered this space as an art collector and I'm really
proud to be the biggest patron of our community at Eitam.
I've collected countless pieces that I don't own, that I've donated to a public Eitam gallery
wallet that just live there and can be observed and appreciated by anyone who goes and looks
at what's in that wallet.
And yeah, I just think the collection is more than art.
It's a testament to the talent and stories in our community.
And I think it's important as a founder or collective or community leader to ensure that
the artists you represent have the visibility and the support that they deserve, not only
digitally but also in real world spaces.
So I just want to give another perspective.
And there are all different types of collectives.
You could start casual and then become more organized and more formal.
I think what's most important is that you don't burn yourself out and that it's always
fun.
Like once it feels like work and once it's tiring and it doesn't feel fun, you're definitely
doing something wrong.
So just make sure you're always having a good time.
Oh, thanks for that, guys.
I hope I wasn't too off topic because I realized I wasn't here at the beginning.
So I'll give the reins back to the original space and hopefully I wasn't derailing too
much.
Yeah, thank you, Luna.
Those are really interesting questions to touch on.
And it was well thought out.
Do let me know if you do come up with any question.
Yeah, Kafani, do you have a question?
Kafani, are you there?
Kafani?
Oh my God.
I think she wrote.
Like going on the topic on being on different blockchains like Foundation and Solana.
Sarah, do you kind of like think about Etan going into Solana at one point in time?
I have thought about it.
To be honest, we're kind of, how do I say this?
So I curate exhibitions.
Etan thrives because the artwork is grouped together to be presented in an exhibition
in the way galleries and museums and institutions present exhibitions in real life.
I'm not just randomly throwing together pieces I think are cool or picking a random piece
of art to post every day.
Every exhibition is thoughtfully curated, has a series of artworks that match a theme
or tell a story.
To be honest, we're very limited in terms of the technology and which platforms support
curation of exhibitions.
At this time, the most robust options that offer curators the ability to curate artists
and invite their wallets to mint artwork into an exhibition are Foundation, which supports
Ethereum and Base, and Object, which is on Tezos.
Object galleries for the last, I don't know how many months have been limited to Fake
Whale Gallery, and over the coming weeks, they've onboarded about 20 new galleries that'll
be supported and on Tezos.
That being said, the only reason truly that we aren't on Solana is that I cannot find
a marketplace partner that offers that exhibition experience that I need.
And by that, I just mean, for example, Exchange Art allows you to curate artwork and group
them together in an exhibition-like style.
But as someone who needs to pay for marketing and resources, it's important that I collect
a curator fee.
Not me as an individual, but Etan's Treasury so that we can continue to operate and offer
opportunities for the community.
Exchange Art doesn't allow that.
It just basically allows you to curate the works and link off to them so people can go
and purchase them.
If there were a Solana marketplace that offered a robust exhibition experience where the curator
could invite the artist to mint their works and use a smart contract to collect their
curator fee, I think that would be ideal.
And I think too, it's important to say this, being a curator is not easy and it's hard
work.
And anyone who tells you that it isn't is either lying to you or isn't doing it right.
It is a full-time job and I think it's important as curators that we value ourselves and collect
our curator fees.
It's great to do people a solid and just do it for the love of the art, but that's not
sustainable.
Everything in this world and in this life costs money.
So I do think it's important that we choose marketplaces that allow us to value our time
and services and collect the fee that we deserve for providing the valuable work we do.
So all that being said, if someone knows a marketplace that has this feature on Solana
that I'm unaware of, please tell me.
I know that Drip has a collective option and that's something I've talked to the founder
of Drip about in terms of bringing Ytan onto Drip.
So that's a possibility.
But again, it's not the same as an exhibition.
So do let me know, anyone who's listening, if there's something I've missed out there
or if you're building something like, hey, please sign up my DMs.
Static, first of all, thank you, Sierra, for sharing about how you feel about the group
creations on Solana.
But I think Static and Soul69 kind of had a weird base of that.
I would like to know how you did that with the first group creation, Static.
Yeah.
I know I come across as a little less formal, but that's kind of who I am, right?
So that's...
But listen, so ExchangeR does do that.
So when we did our curation, there was an option to split off the royalty.
So what we did was between myself and Soulcity, we took a 5% curation fee and we split that
two and a half percent each way, and then that was really super simple.
So I mean, I'm not sure.
I know when you go and you put them into the actual curation platform on ExchangeR, it
doesn't do it there, but you just do it when you mint the pieces.
You just split that off.
And then what we did was after the curation was done, we sent anybody that wants to kind
of flip that switch back off, which is very simple to do as well.
They can take the percentage and push it right back towards themselves once the curation
is finished.
So if that helps you, I mean, because ExchangeR is probably where I would go if I was going
to do another curation that was a formal curation.
But then of course, I do curate on Drip and we've done about 18 of those so far where
we've curated 18 different artists over the last few months.
So I would recommend both of those platforms for what you're looking for.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate you.
I'm definitely going to further explore ExchangeR.
And I didn't even think to use the contract split options at the time of the artist minting
the individual pieces to ensure that the treasury receives the curator fee.
So now that that's in my brain and I know that's an option, I'll definitely explore
it further.
Thank you so much.
No problem.
Thank you.
Thank you, Tafani, do you have any question you want to ask?
I don't know the last time I called your name it was like you ran away.
What happened?
I didn't run away.
I told you I was having a busy day.
More can I just not do this here.
I'm shy and I'm supposed to act super serious right now.
I'm not a serious person.
Well yeah, I have listened to what Sarah had to say and what Soul69 had to say and they
are actually doing like amazing, amazing work in space, especially for Nigerian artists
like Sarah aspects.
Like she watches some of the things she said were like so real and so relatable because
most people don't know that being a curator is a big time work and they're like a lot
of expectations and stuff like around it.
Well I like the fact that she's like managing everything and is actually I would not say
it's going smoothly but it's actually good to see it's coming together because I remember
when I first saw her when she was doing like an open call for the intern ward, I was like,
oh wow, this person is coming to do this stuff.
Will the person actually be there because most people that come to create stuff for
African artists are usually not there till the end and it's really, really, really sad.
Well I'm glad that she's actually here till I will not say till the end because the end
doesn't come.
Well yeah, it's really nice to see and I don't know a lot about Soul69 because I heard this
first from you Vulcan.
But yeah, it's good to see another person that is doing as wonderful as Sarah is and
I just had a lot to learn from what they had to say today basically and I hope to see more
soon and yeah, that's all I have to say Vulcan.
Okay, Static, I do have a question for you in the aspect of exhibitions.
How do you, are you kind of like looking into that's like IRL exhibitions?
You know what, I haven't thought about doing any IRL exhibitions with Soul69.
It's not another question.
You know, I think individually we all do a lot of our own exhibitions and like, you know,
like we're almost always doing like the NFT NYC.
I know that Jimmy was just here a minute ago, I mean he just got curated a few weeks ago
by Victoria West for one of her exhibitions and I think we all have our different directions
that we go.
I think for right now we're probably more focused on looking towards our next like group
curation that would be blockchain related.
But you know, I'm not opposed to it.
You know, there's nothing that would stop us from organizing doing something like that
and I think that a lot of us, you know, we've talked a lot about trying to branch into the
web2 world and trying to get ourselves with more footprint there.
So I think that would be a good way to do it.
So sorry, I was kind of like fighting with my mic.
Thank you.
Thank you for sharing.
Kafani, you want to say something?
Oh my God, Kafani has rocked again.
All right.
I think we have questions from the people up so I brought them up to ask you questions.
I'll first start with Ohat.
Ohat, can you hear me?
I see them as a listener.
Okay, Ohat as a listener.
All right.
I think Ohat is rocked or something.
You're not rocked.
Yeah, I probably went out and I was just coming in.
Yeah, Staffy, can you hear him?
I can now.
Apparently I'm broken now, but it's fine.
I'll figure it out.
Okay, Ohat, do you have a question?
No, I don't have a question.
But then I think I'm up and wait.
Before I say whatever I want to say, let me just for the tradition, shout out to everyone.
Thank you for bringing up this piece.
I see our one and only Yujumama and Susie, Moses, everyone in the listening section.
I think I've been following Susie's life for quite some time now, although I have not really
had the time to really explore what he has been up to.
I've not had the time to really explore it.
But then I think now that we have him here, I think I'm getting to know some of the things
he has been in this space to do.
And it's so good to actually hear from you and to know more about your journey.
So thank you for coming in here to share your journey with us.
So I think as a lot of people come up here and ask you some questions, so we'll get to
know what you have been doing in this space.
As for Sarah, we know you have been a wonderful one in this space, you've been backing us
up.
And we thank you, we appreciate you for that.
Thank you.
Thank you, Uwat.
All right, we move to Moses.
Moses, do you have a question?
Hi, Vulcan.
Yeah, hi, Kafani.
I just came to kind of shout out to everyone.
Kafani has been long.
Sarah, it's been a great time.
We talked and said hi to you, Sarah.
Soul69, it's nice to meet you.
This is my first time meeting you, so it's really cool.
I would like to know more about your community, more about what you do, your platform, your
motivation, and everything.
And yeah, I'd like to know more.
So that's cool.
As I shout out, it's really good to see that more people are coming up to create artists,
to create opportunities for artists, to create communities.
I mean, that's really what we need right now, because it's going to be very hard to just
be on our own alone, so I think community will win more together than alone.
So it's really cool.
Yeah, so I would be, I'm sure that, as Uwat said, a lot of people would have questions.
Maybe I would have a question as we continue to hear.
But for now, I'd like to listen to know what's happening and what's going on and what's his
news.
Okay.
Thank you, Moses.
Yeah, thank you for that.
Thank you for sharing, talking about what we've been talking about in the aspect of collaboration
and artists collective.
Yeah, thank you.
Kafani, you wanted to, I don't know, you wrote, so let's start with that.
What happened?
Well, I don't know.
My Twitter just kept shutting down.
I think it's your space, Uwokan.
Because we are the only one that is jumping up and down.
See, I, in fact, no words for you.
Secondly, you've not seen us in the while because she cut us off now.
It's not your fault.
You've grown wings.
You've not cut all of us off.
It's not your fault, Shah.
And I think I had the question, but I can't remember anymore.
I can't remember, so yeah.
Just remember.
Okay.
I think I wanted to ask about like, how do Ciara and So69 make sure that their artists
feel thin?
Like, I don't know if you get my question, Shah, but like, most times, I mean, as a person,
I don't feel like I get thin.
That's mostly why I joined all these collectives.
Ciara, people can see what I have to offer and stuff.
So I want to know how like, creators do it, like, and like, make sure that their artists
are thin.
Do you get my question?
All right.
Thank you.
Yes.
Ciara and Static, over to you.
I'll first start with you, Ciara.
Sure.
I think, hmm.
I think making sure artists are seen requires not only ongoing communication, but proactively
building opportunities.
And there are lots of different ways you can do that.
At Eetan, we actively create opportunities by organizing our digital exhibition, by
leveraging social media for impactful promotion, by organizing IRL exhibitions.
And these efforts help the artists reach broader audiences.
But equally important, I think maintaining direct communication with the artists.
Like, nearly, nearly every artist in our collective, not only are we in the Twitter group, but
like, have my number on WhatsApp and like, can call me, send me direct messages.
Like, I think it's important to communicate directly with the artists, invite their feedback
understand their goals.
And by regularly checking in, I can tailor the support that we offer to meet their needs.
Whether it's, you know, learning how to use the technology, creating networking opportunities,
supporting promotion.
So I really think it's a combination of this personalized support and then actively creating
opportunities that helps them not only get recognition, but grow as artists.
And one other thing I just want to mention while I have the floor before I pass it to
Soul69 is Vulkan, I think it's really, I think you were very smart to invite, how do I say
this?
Like, Eetan is a culture focused collective, like we're specifically curating West African
art.
Soul69 is a blockchain focused collective that's basically using decentralized technology
to offer artists access to Solana that's scalable and low cost.
And you know, it's attracting tech savvy artists and offering them innovative tools on Solana.
So I just think both are important, like cultural storytelling keeps art grounded and resonant
with roots.
And I think groups like Soul69 use blockchain tools directly to amplify their reach and
transparency and financial possibilities.
And I think it's important that artists explore both.
I'm sure there are artists that are listening like you that are in both collectives.
Maybe they're in a culture focused collective and a blockchain focused collective.
So I think it was just really smart on your part.
And I think as an artist, the beautiful thing about these collectives is like they're not
mutually exclusive, at least I don't know of any that are.
So you could choose to be in both or however many you have the time to participate in.
So I just wanted to add that as well.
Yeah, that is true.
And yeah, it's quite interesting because, yeah, we just had like something similar in
the aspect that, yeah, the your collective is about its culture base.
And Soul69 is filled with a lot of diverse artists from different regions.
And yeah, it's kind of like, yeah, it's kind of like flexible and kind of region wise,
selective, like the way you kind of like select artists and everything.
It's very flexible.
So I'll pass it over to you, Static, on the question that Kapani asked.
Continue.
Sure.
So first, I just want to go back and clarify one thing.
We're not a Solana based group.
Like even my last piece that I personally minted was on Tezos.
Like we're a diverse group, right?
And we are supporting all blockchains.
Again, and I thought it was funny because the last time Tezos, because they've been
giving people 500 tests to help curate weekly on their platform right now.
And I took my account and it was Soul69 account and posted on their post and said, when Soul69
curation on Tezos, right?
Like I don't care where people necessarily mint.
I am more about, to your point of the technology and the growth of technology is about trying
to find out where that is going to take them and then kind of supporting wherever they
go.
Like I had an account on Farcast or Warcast or whatever you want to call it.
And a lot of that was base.
A lot of people minting on base, right?
So I'm sharing a lot of base stuff over there with the account.
So to go back and say, where do we end?
Maybe that's an opportunity too for myself because I want people to understand that a
little bit more.
So if that's, and I totally get it, like Soul69, right?
Solana, like exploration of Solana, right?
I get it.
Maybe I got to fix how I'm spinning that message a little better.
But to the, how do we help with visibility, right?
So look, there's multiple websites that are available.
I market, it's like my job.
I'm a business consultant.
And one of my things that I have to do regularly is work on local marketing and strategic marketing.
It's social media marketing, web marketing.
And so I've got a couple of websites out there that are focused on kind of getting the Google
SEO to highlight artists so that there's an extra Google site that pops up when you Google
somebody, right?
Like, we talked earlier about making sure that when you go onto our, anything to do
Soul69, you should be able to find all the artists that are supported, right?
So if you see this name, this brand, it doesn't lead to me, right?
It leads to everybody.
So that's part of it too.
And whether it's a curation or specifically highlighting artists during a curation or
we've done collaboration highlights for curations, supporting artists through buybacks on any
of the curation funds that we do get and kind of spreading ourselves into different marketplaces,
different avenues, and really just kind of going outward.
And I do some of that through my other account, which is the one you see down there, which
is static.
And I said that's funny because the other day somebody in the group said, you know,
why don't you ever retweet my stuff with the Soul69 account?
And I laughed and I said, because it doesn't have as much reach as my static account has,
right?
And so I went through and I retweeted all of her most recent posts with the Soul69 account.
But if you go through my timeline, you'll see things that are not just Solana based
and same with the other account, obviously.
So I'm glad you said that because if that's the perception, I wanted to make sure I clarified
that.
But yeah, there's a number of different things that are out there.
I'm probably forgetting a good chunk of them, but like there's Telegram groups that are
set up.
There's, you know, different social media platforms, YouTube, you know, which I'm not
very active on because it seems like a waste of time right now.
And some of the one of the things I'm exploring currently in I was posting about this yesterday
is Facebook because, you know, Facebook, I think, is underutilized, to be honest with
you, because there's a lot of groups and a lot of sharing of best practices and things
like that that I think artists could benefit from.
So for me personally, I like to try and explore my photography side.
And I'm in a lot of photography groups.
And I think that it's just under appreciated right now as a platform to learn on.
So you know, doing things like that, recognizing things like that, and then sharing it and
hopefully bringing some people along the ride is a focus, again, help with that visibility
piece.
Yes, Sierra.
Oh, my God, I learned something today.
I did not realize that Soul69 wasn't just on Solana.
And for those who are unfamiliar and made this assumption based on the name like me,
it's actually really awesome to learn that they're like champion, championing a variety
of like different scalable and low cost options for minting and transacting art.
Because ultimately, that's like what's most important to allow artists to enter the digital
space without having like high financial barriers.
So it's just awesome to know that they're leveraging other blockchains and platforms.
You know, he mentioned Solana, which is also a really I mean, Tezos, which is an alternative
to Solana and is also like very cost effective.
I just think it's awesome to know that they're helping artists mint their work affordably
on a variety of blockchains and making it accessible for emerging creators and seasoned
artists who want to expand into the digital space and ultimately like with these collectives,
like our focus is to enable the artists to focus on their creativity and their storytelling
rather than worrying about high fees.
So thank you for teaching me something.
Yeah, of course.
And thank you for thinking that honestly, because if it's a first, you're not I'm sure
you're not the only one.
And it's because we're it's heavily focused on Solana only because we're doing drip curations
right now.
And I feel like most of the tweets you see come from this account are drip based.
But it's something I got it obviously you saying that it means I got to fix that.
So thanks for pointing it out.
Yeah, thank you.
One of the things about this topic collaboration over competition is because of things like
this, you get to see like two collectives like they have like different, different ideas
and different system that actually kind of like work for them.
So sometimes, yeah, you can get to kind of like pick one or two things from each other.
Now you do things and going from the system in which you do things.
I would like to ask like, which social media platform do you find very effective in communicating
with your artists?
Like for some people, they kind of like make use of discord.
Some people make use of the listen.
And for me, just like for my own personal opinion, I'm not really a fan of discord.
I get lost there.
Like I've been in a lot of discord channels in which I just got lost and I gave up on
this court.
But yeah, I would like to first know how you kind of like solve the communication factor
from you, Sierra.
Sure, I think a lot of us are Twitter based.
And I don't know, I think a lot of us too are like just exhausted and have fatigue from
all of these different options of places to communicate.
Like if one more person asked me to join their telegram group or their discord server, I'm
going to pull my hair out.
Like I'm so tired of it.
So I think it's important to meet people where they're at.
And if and that's different for different communities, like if your community you notice
is mostly active on Twitter, then maybe the most effective means of communication is a
chat on Twitter.
But if people are spread out everywhere, like for example, there was a period of time that
Brazilian artists couldn't use Twitter and people were opting maybe to communicate on
WhatsApp or telegram.
So I think it depends on the current circumstances.
But just like whatever has the lowest barrier and is the least headache for everyone, like
telling people to download a new networking app or messaging app to join a group is just,
I can promise you no one wants to do that.
So for us, it's Twitter.
And then because most of the artists are in Nigeria, WhatsApp is very popular as well,
just as a mean of like quick and direct communication to have phone calls.
I think we I don't even remember if we tried just to cord.
Yeah, no, I didn't even go that route just because I personally hate discord.
But to each their own, I think it depends where your community congregates, meet them
where they are.
Yes, that's true.
And yeah, now I can remember like, every time we kind of like did our kind of passing information
and everything, there's always on Twitter.
And then I don't know if like the group you created on what cast is still kind of active
for like, do you still kind of pass on information on what cast or how is it going?
We do still use farcaster and we have a group on there for each time and we have a channel.
The main barrier with farcaster was that there and I don't know if this is still the case.
I think it is you have to pay like $5 a year to use it.
And I don't know to some people that might not seem like a lot.
But if you have to choose between $5 and like, essential, you know, cost of living resources
and supplies, like it's it's probably low on your totem pole of priorities.
So farcaster wasn't the best option because it just $5 a year wasn't accessible for everyone
in the collective.
The other thing too, with farcaster is they made a change to their platform recently where
they made all the channels members only can cast in them.
And that just created another just like barrier in terms of people being able to use the channels
to share their art without requesting like a membership invite.
I think it depends though.
I think a different type of people congregate on farcaster.
It's definitely a more techie web three native crypto heavy community.
I don't think there are artists there is too, but it just feels like the art communities
are bigger and stronger on Twitter than they are farcaster, at least in my experience.
Thank you.
So going to use static, what do you wish particular platform because I know you make use of Twitter
and then you make use of telegram.
Yeah, yeah.
And I have to be honest as well.
Let's say I also communicate on telegram, but my records, the way I communicate on telegram
is different with the way it is on Twitter.
I don't really get information that well.
Yeah, but because of yeah, I'm used to Twitter and everything.
So which platform is kind of like very effective for you to pass your tends to artists?
Yes, I'm going to try not to get like, I'm going to try and reserve myself, right?
Because I definitely agree with what Sierra was saying.
And I think sometimes we're steering people into platforms for our own selfish needs,
right?
Like, and I don't mean that in a bad way, but like, you know, we spread ourselves sometimes
into all these different like corners, right?
And like when WarpCast came out, there was a lot of money to be made.
And I don't absolutely don't, you know, take that away from anybody that needed to go over
there and maybe, you know, basically get free DGN and do all the tipping and all the other
stuff that was going on.
But there was a lot of people trying to record, you know, recruit people over there.
When you get there, it's like not as good, right?
Like it's kind of like, what am I doing here?
In my own opinion, right?
And so I try to be at least from a communication standpoint, really structured back to like
where we all are and where we all are is really on Twitter.
So this is definitely my primary means of communication.
I will say though, like when you think about just the blockchain as a whole or Web3 as
a whole, like I think there's a lot to be said about Telegram.
And that's why I have a Telegram group and why I'm on Telegram too.
And I don't use it as much, nearly as much, but I use it similar to what you said before,
like WhatsApp.
I'll call people on Telegram.
You know, Telegram is highly encrypted.
Like you can like, it's really just a very unique program.
I don't know if people look enough into that and kind of see what's there.
And I just, I would encourage you to check out, maybe read some about it.
But what's on Telegram outside of really, there's not a ton of art, but it's where crypto
lives, right?
Like, and you know, it's where the meme coins all live.
And it's where a lot of the side conversations happen that are outside of our normal circles.
Okay.
So when you think about like understanding and educating the whole picture and really
knowing like what's going on behind the scenes, most of that stuff and those conversations
are all happening on Telegram.
So you know, while we're all on Twitter, you know, crypto is all, or a lot of it is on
Telegram and then they come to Twitter to share their tweets.
Okay.
But they're not conversing necessarily all on Twitter.
And some of them have DM groups, don't get me wrong, but like a lot of those heavy groups
are on Telegram.
So, so yeah, for me, I hate discord or right there with you.
I think it's an unorganized, disorganized mess.
Can't keep it just useless to me almost unless I really have to go in there for a specific
project or something that I need to ask questions about or a platform.
But yeah, so right now it's just Twitter, Telegram.
And like I said before, I'm going to, I'm going to explore a little bit of Facebook
because I'm seeing some things that I was surprised about recently.
So that's, that's my answer.
Sure.
Thank you.
Um, you know, I'm not really active on Facebook.
I can't remember the last, why they even know my Facebook login anymore.
I mean, I'm just kidding.
That's been a long time actually, but
Facebook is WhatsApp.
So you probably have an account and don't even realize that they connect.
So you're, you're, you're there if you go WhatsApp.
Oh, really?
Yeah, that's true.
Yes.
That is Mark Zuckerberg's platform.
It kind of like connected itself.
But I wanted to kind of also can, I think this would be possibly the last question coming
for me, but, um, this, this one is about in the aspect of competition as a collective,
a collective, do you find yourself in some form of competition with other collective
and yeah, how do you kind of solve that?
And have you done any form of collaboration with another collective?
Yeah.
I just wanted to know your thoughts on that.
So I'll first start with Sierra.
Finally, the question about competition and collaboration over competition.
Awesome question.
To be honest, yeah, we're not here to compete with other collectives.
In fact, the whole reason Ytan came to be is because there simply weren't any collectives
dedicated to showcasing and preserving the voices of West African artists in the way
we envisioned.
And we're just here to fill a gap and create a community centered space where African artists
can thrive, not to position ourselves against others.
In fact, I openly encourage our artists to seek any opportunities that they feel would
benefit them, whether they're in or outside of our collective.
Um, there, I mean, there are other groups that are focused on creating opportunities
for artists who have been historically underrepresented and offer them more visibility and resources
and networking.
And ultimately that's just what's been missing in the broader art and blockchain space.
So I consider any other collective that has the goal to lift these artists up and to foster
collaboration and innovation.
I consider them an ally and not competition.
I think they're, I think, oh, um, on Drip, there is an African art collective.
And it's my friend Sternberg who runs it.
It's called, I think it's called Aukibulan or something of that nature.
And we've been in a lot of communication about the work that he's doing on Drip for African
artists.
To be honest, I told him, I was just like, I, I'm doing so much on so many other platforms.
Like, it's just a lot for me to do.
And like, I just feel like you're helping me.
Like I feel like if artists come to me and they're like, Oh, I want to do something on
Drip, like I can just send them to you instead of me trying to juggle another ball in the
air.
So that being said, we do actively seek other collectives that prioritize African art and
try to collaborate and exchange artists and works between them.
And if anyone is listening to this and has a collective and wants to collaborate in some
way, we would love to.
I mean, a lot of our collaborations in the past have been with platforms and marketplaces.
Like we've received grants from BASE for the work we do on BASE.
We've done work with Transient Labs that was sponsored by Arbitrum, another low cost L2.
So we're always open to collaboration.
I don't see any other collective as a competitor.
Thank you, Sierra.
Yeah, I think that collectives can work together to elevate both of the people in their organizations
and the aspects of what you said and how you kind of like work together.
And at the same time, you also kind of like minimize your work.
You know what I mean?
Because you're kind of like putting yourself out there in different particular type of
platforms.
You don't have the time.
So if someone is kind of like helping you to do that work, I feel like the both of you
can work together.
Do you kind of like see that working in exhibitions as well?
Like doing a particular type of collaboration with another collective?
I think that would be awesome.
I have done, I've co curated a few exhibitions with different organizations.
We have, like 01 is a platform on Avalanche that's been gaining popularity over the last
couple months.
And I recently co curated an event in Korea that was just so interesting.
It was like an event to like bridge Asian and African culture, and they selected a few
Asian artists and I selected a few African artists.
And it was like just this really unique vibe that came together.
Like they're going to play music from like both heritages and cultures.
Like it's, I wish I could go in person.
I'm sure it's going to be awesome.
I've done co curation with Daniel who heads like creator relations at Transient Labs for
an upcoming exhibition related to just the sentiment of togetherness for the holiday
season.
So that exhibition will be like half African artists and then half just like globally selected
artists.
So I'm always open to those opportunities.
I'm just trying to show up for a group of people that are often overlooked.
And if I can bring them into the fold or to any table that's willing to have us, like
I'm always down.
Thank you for sharing here.
Yeah.
Moses, do you have a question?
All right.
So I have, yeah, of course I have a question now.
I want to ask this is the question to Sierra and Sol.
Now I know like the main objective of our communities is to showcase artists and to
help artists get more visibility, to work as a cooperative rather than just individual
people everywhere.
But right now considering the state of the market and how do we push this objective?
How do we get more traffic to our communities or how do we get more people, you know, like,
you know, how do we get more sales, which is like the heart of what is, you know, we
are, I'm sure to collaborate and also to make sales, right?
So how do we achieve that purpose?
Because I think earlier when we started discussing here, Kafani asked the question about how
she doesn't think that she has visibility and I'm also sure it might also lead this
visibility and another aim of it is to make sales, right?
Yeah.
So I'm sure maybe it's also directing indirectly, I've seen, okay, she doesn't feel like she's
also making a lot of sales, right?
So in this community, how do we push this?
How do we get more traffic and how do we lead this to sales?
Okay.
So who wants to answer that question?
I feel like this one is, yeah, more technical.
I'll give a stab at it if you want me to start.
You know, I don't think there's one answer though.
I mean, I don't know if anybody can really give you a great answer on this one, but I
can tell you my own thoughts on it.
And, you know, for one, I don't believe that web three is the only place people should
be and I would never encourage that.
You know, even like if you think about what we're doing right now, like we're using a
web two platform to promote web three, right?
So there's a lot of room for growth on web two.
So I think that exploring opportunities of making prints and, you know, getting yourself
involved in different websites that maybe sell digital art, you know, on a website that's
a web two platform is important.
And I think that helps with your personal brand visibility as well.
You know, I think too, I think one of the things, this is going to be a little bit counter
intuitive to wear, a little counter to what I said before, but it's just a thought, you
know, that I've had for a while.
And, you know, I felt like even when we were like primarily on Tezos, like we were all
marching towards the same direction and we were, you know, it was like object in Tezos,
right?
All the artists are marching towards, you know, one direction together.
And then when we went to Solana, a lot of us, it was still everybody marching towards
the same direction.
And since then there's been a lot of different platforms and different blockchains and everybody
kind of exploring.
And what you're doing, at least what I recognized myself doing was I alienated some of my collectors
on Tezos where they didn't come to Solana, right?
And I didn't mint on Tezos for a while.
I fragmented myself and I don't think if we can't handle multi-chain, then it's really
important that you kind of don't keep jumping from one spot to the next until you've recognized
where you need to be in the spot you're standing, right?
And I think a lot of people see the shiny thing in Web3 and they jump to the next shiny
thing.
But what's happening is we're never giving ourselves a chance to stay stable and to
really perfect what we're trying to do and grow our communities in this new area, right?
So for me, I was Tezos, I moved to Solana, I didn't jump again, right?
And I don't think I'm ready to go anywhere else again.
And I've been on ETH 2, but again, it's just not something that I'm comfortable doing because
the other thing, because I enjoy collecting and I would see people jumping, sometimes
I can't jump with them, right?
And then I'm stuck where I see pieces that I want and I can't get them and it's frustrating
and I'm not willing to make the jump.
So now what has that done to the artist?
Because just again, speaking personally, right?
Like if I see a piece and I really like it, I can say, well, I would have bought that
if it was on a blockchain that I'm currently still using, right?
But I'm not going to go open up a new account with a new website, a new platform, a new
blockchain to go buy a piece of art from an artist that I love, right?
So it's just, and that's just my own personal opinion.
So again, I don't want to keep drowning on it, but to go back to your question, look,
I think just find consistency and find your success and where you're at.
Don't be afraid to explore web 2, but within the web 3 space too, I would just be cautious
how often you jump.
And I'll just leave it at that.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Um, you know, you don't have to raise your hand up as the covers, right?
It is still the polite thing to do.
Um, so I had a question from world.
So six, nine just said about, uh, making jumps to different platforms.
Cause I do, I, I see that a lot of people are now on, um, I think wallet bubble.
I think that's the name of the past form because I've not really been, um, on the web, do you
or like on Twitter recently because I've been busy with true life stuff.
So when I came back, I saw that foundation was crashing and so people were trying to
find alternatives.
So different people were like on different platforms.
And, um, so six, nine just said that we should not like jump around tickets because it's
not like conducive for collectors and stuff.
But when I came online, I saw some collectors say that, oh, that's we should jump around
to suit their tastes.
I don't know if you get where I'm coming from, but like, it's just a situation where I'm
like different, but I think different things.
And then they are always just having something to say.
And then this young artists can just catch a break tickets.
So I don't know if like, it's something that is still out to you or you're talking, um,
in, um, from a point of being a collector or something.
I don't know if you get my question, like I'm asking if you saying that, oh, we should
not jump around is like you giving us general advice or you're saying it from your own point
of view tickets.
And Sarah has something to say.
So you want to go first here before I answer the question, at least on my behalf.
Yeah, just like only because we're talking about jumping to different chains.
I just wanted to quickly say like, as a collector, um, don't hesitate to reach out to an artist
and let them know that you'd buy their work.
If it were available on a different chain, a lot of artists are flexible and willing
to accommodate collector preferences.
I've even seen artists burn the original and re mint it on a different chain.
And I think, um, direct communication like this really shows genuine interest and can
help build a stronger connection with the artist.
And also it just creates a more personalized collecting experience.
I've done this.
I've seen art that I liked on exchange art and not had any Solana in my wallet and asked
the artists if they'd be willing to burn it and minted on base or minted on Tezos or whatever.
So I just wanted to throw that out there, um, as it relates to like jumping chains and
such.
Yeah.
And I'll go back to, to what, and again, look, I, I sometimes I speak on behalf of like the
world, right?
And it's just that I need to learn to stop doing that.
But I do, and I'm not going to, I'm going to still do that right now, right?
Because I think that it's important and I don't think it's just me that feels the way
I just stated, right?
Like I do feel like a lot of people feel the same way and Sierra just provided a great
solution to that.
Right.
And I think that there's more solutions that will come, you know, I don't know in the future,
how much it matters that you're on one blockchain or another blockchain or whatever.
Right.
And I think now like if artists created their own websites and within that website, I had
a swap that I could use to take my Tezos and convert it to, you know, Solana or whatever
and then just click the collect button after I was done swapping and it would still go
to my wallet.
Then I think that solves the problem, right?
And that's, that is something you can do.
Now I don't do that personally.
I think that's a lot of work to build that out.
But there, there are artists right now that I know that are working on that for their
own personal sites.
So there's solutions around it.
But to the point of like before, what I was trying to say is that when you move to a blockchain,
make sure there's somebody there that's collecting, right?
Like, cause if you're just taking your current collector and you're moving your current collector
to a new blockchain to collect from you, then you're not growing.
Right.
But if you're going to a blockchain that has a collector base that you're, that you don't
currently interact with and a new base, absolutely like go explore, right?
Like that's, that's strategically exploring and changing blockchains or platforms or whatever
you want to call it, depending on what you're doing.
But to just go and then bring a bunch of people with you, that to me, just, it just seems
like it's just spinning a lot of wheels and plates and it's not really doing anything
to help you grow at the end of the day.
You're just helping platforms grow.
That's what's happening.
And in a lot of cases and platforms are taking full advantage of it.
And so are some curators and other people in this space that are pulling you guys all
along and it's pissing me off.
So I try to, you know, be as vocal as I can when I see it, because I know what these people
are doing and we can all see it.
And sometimes we just still just go along with it.
And it's, it's frustrating because like I said before, it kind of scatters a little
bit.
So
Kofani, you're raising your hand again.
Yeah, because I have something else to say.
So yeah.
So I get the points.
So Six Lines coming from, and I understand what Sarah just said, but then I feel like
it's not easy for, I'm saying sorry.
It's not easy for artists to, you know, make the decision not to jump, you know, because
it's like a trend thing.
You know, you see something happening, like, or you see people moving to this platform
and then you that have been struggling with sales, like, okay, let me give you an example.
Everybody, most people here are Nigerians here.
And most people here are artists in Nigeria.
And the economy is very bad.
And although we want to say that, oh, we make ads for, you know, the love of other stuff,
we all hope that, oh, this art brings in a bit of money that will like sustain us to
get.
So I come online.
I'm not, I'm not saying me like, this is an example.
I am maybe an artist that has not made a sale, like on foundation for like seven months or
so.
And then I come and I see, oh, these people are moving to, you know, maybe object and
then they are having sales and stuff like that.
And I see other people moving to like base and stuff like that.
It would be very hard for me to like hold myself and say, oh, I'm not going to move
here because there are no like collectors for me here or stuff.
And there's no like, guaranteed I would see collectors when I moved here.
Well, I feel like it's just a trend thing.
You're just like, I just feel like the term is just hope.
Everybody hopes that, oh, when they get here, when they jump here, that something will happen
for them.
Basically, that's what I feel like will happen.
And even me, I like see, I sometimes have the urge, oh, when I see things happening
on another platform, although I don't really like like being scattered and stuff, I like
planning my stuff.
If not, I would have been on a lot of platforms.
So I just feel like it's not as easy as we would want it to be.
We get.
Well, yeah, the advice is really great.
And I hope a lot of people learn from what you had to say.
Sarah, your hand's up.
Yeah.
Okay.
I just wanted to kind of add on to what Static mentioned and also address Mo's question about
sales, address your concern about just diversifying your approach and staying relevant in the
space.
I have to say, like, I almost feel like the bad guy when I say this, but like, as a curator,
I'm constantly in the position of reminding artists that they have chosen one of the hardest
careers and no one told you to do that.
Let me just put that out there.
You have chosen one of the hardest careers.
You didn't go and become a nurse where there's always sick people that you can treat.
You didn't go and ride on the back of a garbage truck where there's always trash to be picked
up.
You chose to be an artist.
And when you choose to be an artist, you have to be patient and you have to persevere.
Building a following and creating sales takes time.
And staying committed to the journey is difficult, but it's key.
I always encourage artists to diversify their approach, experiment with new styles, explore
different platforms, actively engage with their community.
You have to be willing to try new things and be open to change because it keeps your work
fresh, but it also broadens your audience and helps you reach potential collectors in unexpected
places.
As an artist, you have to understand talent alone does not guarantee success.
Success in art is a mix of talent, resilience, and adaptability.
So I know it's not, I know no one wants to hear, well, pick a different job, but that's
the reality of the situation.
You chose a hard life and I'm not trying to be nasty or mean.
Any established artist will tell you it wasn't easy.
It was difficult.
There were trials and tribulations.
To be honest, I don't know any artist who's had it easy.
Even the big ones who make it seem easy usually had to struggle for years with no sales or
low sales before they got where they were.
So just please keep that in mind.
Talent alone doesn't guarantee success.
Be patient and persevere.
Keep making your art.
Keep making it because if you stop making it and sharing it, you're counting yourself
out before anyone else can.
Yeah, Sarah, that's actually very real because my mother told me to be a doctor.
I don't even know.
It's me that's wanted to be an artist.
So I have the right to complain.
And yeah, I actually, what you just said now, I actually try to keep it in mind every time
like, oh, I should not rush it.
I should just remember to be patient and stuff.
And although my mother wanted me to be a doctor, she still reminded me that, oh, you're the
one that chose this hard life.
So you have to just stay there.
You have to just keep going.
You can't even, I can't even give up because the way my parents have pushed me, they say
since you're not a doctor, better stop at the end and get what you want to get.
So yeah, it's important I remember all this kind of sense you get.
So I'm not done with what I want to say, but like so 6'9", you can have the floor.
Yeah.
So I just wanted to kind of go back to two things you said about like you see people
kind of jumping and it's hard not to, right?
Like when you see it.
So two things.
One, so when we decided we were going to go over to Solana, we went as a group, right?
Like, and that was really, really important.
And it was very strategic and intentional, right?
Like we didn't mint anything until we had 70 people that were all willing to mint the
stuff that we had, collectors that were lined up that were new collectors and existing.
And some people in our group are like, let's go, let's get this curation underway.
What are we waiting on?
Right?
But like we went in December, we didn't do our curation until February, right?
It's okay to wait sometimes.
There's no rush, right?
And I posted a link in the, whatever, the bubble thing at the bottom, I don't know whatever
it's called, the comments.
I pinned it.
Oh yeah.
So Vulcan just pulled it up, right?
So like, and this is kind of what I was talking about before, like you can do the research
before you jump, right?
Because there are times that you want to go somewhere else, right?
You could be in a sinking ship and you don't want to stay and be the last person holding,
you know, on for dear life as all of your friends leave and go somewhere else that's
currently thriving, right?
So that website is called Dappradar.
It's one of many, but this is one that I personally like.
And a lot of these different platforms are on there and blockchains and you can see all
their trends by 30 days, 90 days a year.
And you just want to look and see like, you know, the thing you don't want to see is when
your artists are really like heavily outweighing your collectors.
So that's like just something I kind of keep in mind.
Like you'll see, it'll break it down for you.
You'll see artists and collectors, right?
And when you see that it's really outweighed, then you know the competition is really, really
heavy.
But when you see a place that has a lot of collectors in it and maybe the same amount
of artists or even less artists than collectors, well, then that's probably a good choice,
right?
And if you see that the trends are going up and they're consistently going up, then that's
probably a good choice too, right?
So don't just see, you know, it's like that.
What is it?
The lemmings where everybody like walks off the cliff because the person in front of them
walks off the cliff, right?
Like we don't have to do that.
Like there's so this isn't years ago where there's not ways to research the stuff.
There's like I have in my bookmarks, like on my computer, like just, oh my God, like
I don't even know.
I have a folder called research and it's just like 50 or 60 websites that are all solid
sites depending on what I'm trying to do, right?
And I think that that's important to kind of have those links, but that's one for you.
And yeah, just to help you do a little bit of legwork before you go.
Thank you, Static.
Also, I wanted to kind of like, yeah, I don't know if you didn't answer, you didn't answer
that question I asked before about, yeah, finding yourself in competition with other
collectives and stuff.
I know CRS did, but I think you didn't have an opportunity to.
No, I don't believe in competition or, well, I believe in competition, but no, I'm not
in competition with collectives.
I don't, I'm not in competition with anybody in the space nor what I want to be, you know,
so that's my take on it.
It's about all I can say on it really, so.
Yeah, that's great.
Moses, do you have another question?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I just wanted to add to some of the things that have been said here before.
Yeah, true.
I would feel that, you know, being an artist, right, it's a big deal.
You know, it's you choosing to pursue your passion, pursue your love, and a lot of times,
you know, these things, you know, it might not just give you the financial reward you're
looking for as much.
So what you just do is you try to survive, which is like what a lot of people try.
I've done that myself.
Like a lot of times I've...
Sorry, good.
I thought I was making my baby just off the mic on me.
So yeah, so a lot of times I put myself in positions where I just have to do stuff to
survive.
I have to take up jobs where I know that, you know, this doesn't pay well, but it will
just keep me going for the meantime.
So I feel like, you know, so if you are the one that know yourself better, if you know
that you need the money and maybe this is what you survive on, you could just take up
something.
So I think that that goes a long way to answer a lot of the questions that you need to decide
for yourself beyond anybody telling you.
So if you find some platforms that maybe, but you know, they pay a little no matter
what, just keep going.
Just keep going and don't give up as Sarah said.
Don't give up.
Just keep pushing through and then, you know, one day you meet your big sale or you meet
your big whatever connection or whatever as an artist.
Keep going.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you, Moses.
And yeah, I think your baby needs your attention.
So can I think to her now, flower man?
At the same time, I think, um, Keane, yeah, you want to ask the question?
I'm doing good, man.
I slept a little bit.
Well, I slept a little bit less than I thought I would, but it's been worked since, since
I last talked to you.
But yeah, so I sell on, I think like last count, I sell on like seven blockchains or
I've sold on seven blockchains.
And the, I agree with what, um, what soul said, which is, um, we're not really, I don't
think we're competing with each other here.
I think that we're effectively all competing against our relative circumstances.
And the beautiful thing about here, at least for me is that once someone, it's not, it's
not a zero sum game.
When someone makes money, I didn't lose money.
When someone does well, I didn't do poorly because I didn't do well.
And when every time someone does, I'm a musician.
So I do crypto music and like VLN just sold a song for one Bitcoin.
That positively impacts my environment.
It's a good thing.
It's the better we all do collectively rising tides.
So goes the adage.
Um, I do think, however, when you go to different, it's important for artists to be diversified.
Like I, I never had any delusions of my own ability.
I'm a, I make mid musical.
It's mid it's good mid, but it's mid.
I'm a novice artist.
I've never did visual art till I came here.
So that's four years and, um, whatever I lack in technical skill, I try to make up for
an innovation, but I know that I'm, I'm even at my best, I'm still going to be catering
to very niche niche of a niche of this particular in this community is a niche.
So it's a niche of a niche of a niche of a niche.
So I'm not going to find all of my people in one place.
And since my collector base or what would be my collector base, if they ever saw my
work or knew me, they don't know me.
I have to go find them and they're not going to come find me.
I'm not going to be a fair in the air that draws them all to me.
I'm going to have to go seek them where they are.
And that will likely be on different chains.
So I go to different chains and just immerse myself in who's there.
Like there's a community pretty much everywhere that you're going to go.
I just figure out why that community is there, what they like about it, you know, what's
positive about it and how can I fit in?
And that's kind of how I've managed to stay as diversified because the light isn't always
shining everywhere.
You know, in 2021 and even in the early 22, I was doing great on tests.
I did great on test.
I love tests.
This is awesome.
And I was on Calamans and you know, with Calamans was still a thing and it was a great time.
But as I saw the light, I saw the light moves around, I knew it wouldn't always be on tests.
So Bitcoin, I was doing counterparty and did ordinals and ETH and Matic and Neer and I
just try stuff because it's not so much the blockchains represent some greater emancipation
of the free mind or whatever thing people be saying that went to school longer than
I did.
It's just the people who are prone to like what I make, I have to go find them.
And sometimes they'll come across chain for me like every day.
That's a really big honor when they do like I don't expect them to.
But when they do, I'm very flattered and humbled because someone changing their rupees to transact
in Naira for me, just for me is a big deal because it's not like they want to do that.
If they were they wanted to do that, they would have been doing it.
They're doing it for this particular drop.
So I'd rather just deal with the people who transact in Naira.
When I do something in yen, I deal with the people who can constantly transact in yen.
But I do think that it's important that it's good and that was already said, I just want
to reiterate that a few hundred years off the clock, like musicians, artists, actors,
magicians, prostitutes, we were all in the red light district.
This is not a way of life or a vocation you pursue because this is going to be a not a
struggle, but this is going to be a task.
And it's going to take a lot to be a successful artist, the same as it takes a lot to be a
successful athlete.
Everyone who does this is not guaranteed success.
And I think sometimes what happens is artists, it happened to me, early success, you forget
that this is hard.
And that's why it's important for conversations like this to lean on each other, gain perspective,
because who's going to understand what you're doing more than someone else who's doing it?
And that's the main reason why I think collaboration, even if not, like I don't do a lot of features,
like I don't do a lot of music with other people, but I collaborate conversationally,
I collaborate socially, emotionally, you know, we collaborate that way.
And that's just as, or at least to me, more important than collaborating artistically,
because it helps to regain perspective and make this burden not as heavy to lift.
Thank you for sharing your insights, Ken.
That was really, really, yeah, just really, really thoughtful and everything.
Tafany, you want to say something?
One second, I think I've forgotten my hand in the first place.
But yeah, I just wanted to say the ideas that Kane had were really good, the collaborative
sofa and everything.
I don't remember my question.
So, I'm so sick now, you can go ahead.
Hey, Ken, this is static.
I don't know if I've talked to you on this account before, but I'm just going to go ahead
and talk to you.
Hey, look, I, you know, earlier, I don't know when you popped in the room or not, but like,
you know, I was talking a little bit about some of the blockchain hopping and platform
hopping and, you know, kind of having a strategy behind if you're going to hop and kind of
knowing where you're going before just following the group off the cliff.
Right.
So like, you kind of talked about just a second ago, like you've gone through these seven
blockchains.
So can you maybe provide some insight in what you do to kind of prepare or know that you
want to go somewhere before you just kind of jump in there?
Yeah, I'd love to.
And I think that's the that's the main part of it.
It's intent.
And it's not self-deprecating.
I think I'm handsomer than everyone here.
I think I made better eggs.
I have a very good sense of my own self, right.
Artistically and vocationally, I don't think that I show up and it's a hey, everyone, Kane
Mayfield's here.
So get your get your crypto out because it's about to make it rain on my.
No, that's not going to happen.
Everywhere has their own culture.
So when artists like I did OK on counterparty, I did I did I did I did all right.
Artists will go, hey, so it's happening over there.
Right.
And I go, whoa, whoa, whoa.
No, no one over there is stupid.
No one over there is financially promiscuous.
They like frogs and Bitcoin church art.
I'm the one would you make.
That's what they like over there.
They like frogs and they like Bitcoin church art.
Do you make frogs or Bitcoin church art?
No.
Well, then you're going to have a rough road to hope because that's all they care about.
And let me tell you something.
They are very direct.
They like frogs and they like Bitcoin church art.
So I went and I sat and I listened and I hung around and participating in the community
is not just here's what I have for sale.
Participating in the community is immersing yourself in more of the non tangible of why
that community is still together.
The counterparty people were here prior to there being money in this.
So they like each other.
They've been in the same group chat since 2017.
So I'm in that group chat and I can't go back as far as them.
I can't scroll up as far, but I'm listening and I'm understanding and I ask questions
and I chime in if I know something or if I think something and I just become a participant.
So every if you break it down like New York, if you're selling weed, I know this is a terrible
example of selling weed in New York.
I'm from Long Island.
If I'm in the city, wherever I am, they think I'm from there.
When I'm in Queens, they think I'm from Queens because they see me in Queens and they don't
see me as like, hey, what's up guys?
Just coming to Queens, make a couple sales.
No, no, no, no, no.
It's your what up?
How you been?
What's going on?
What's that?
Oh, word, what you do?
Oh, that's crazy, man.
All right, well, I'll catch you guys later.
I'm just around.
And I think diversifying community is you also have to diversify communication vehicles.
There's five pillars of like NFT crypto social media and there I break, they don't have to
be overly New York centric, but five boroughs again, Twitter is Manhattan.
It's shiny and gaudy and it's a lot of people selling stuff and a lot of fake purses.
You know, a lot of Gucci purses and stuff.
Brooklyn is discord.
I mean, I know a lot of artists don't like discord.
I don't think that you need to like it, but I do think it's necessary.
And I'm not talking about grinding in discord chats for air drops.
I mean, actively going where they talk about things you like and participating in whatever
that conversation is organically because you're actually interested in what's going on.
Telegrams, Queens, Clubhouse is the Bronx.
I know people think Clubhouse is dead.
I'm still on Clubhouse.
I was on Clubhouse last night and Reddit is stat now because it's weird.
But as you move around those places, those are where you'll just find people and those
people as you engage in conversations are all going to be from different places.
I'll be on Reddit in a, you know, in just a thread and I'll say something and someone
will say something else and we're joking going back and forth.
And after a while it's like, Hey, well, you know, I, as a, you know, I make crypto art,
so I blah, blah, blah, blah.
It just comes out organically in conversation.
Oh, what do you do?
Oh man, I buy on soul.
Do you put anything on soul?
Oh, no, I actually haven't been on so dude, you gotta, you gotta come to this group chat,
man.
We would love to do came school.
Come come over here.
And then I go over there and then I hang out for a while.
I don't just meet stuff hoping I meant stuff with a target audience in mind.
I make stuff for the people who live there.
And again, if any of my organic audience or my base or my 12, my 12 fans or collectors
or whatever follow me over there, that's also a really cool win.
But I much rather focus on meeting new people in those places and relying on the culture
to kind of carry me through.
Like, so if I'm on ETH, ETH is a little bit more what you're doing, what to do.
You know, they got a lot of toys, so they're very used to what you're doing, what to do.
Tez is a feelings community, so they want to know the story.
And you know, you can go to Tez right now, anyone can go to Object, open up a Kukai while
it drops something on Object.
But who knows it's there?
No one knows it's there.
You're a rapper putting something on SoundCloud.
The record labels didn't hear it because they don't even know you exist.
So it's important, I think, to show up on the radar of the people who are there.
And because I don't think we're all super duper ultra unique snowflakes, there's gonna
be people who make kind of something like you there, and you go find them.
And since we're not competing with each other, at least I don't think we're competing with
each other, it's always been very welcoming.
It's like, hey, I do AI.
You know, I do AI.
Oh, cool.
That's what's up, man.
You know, what do you use?
And now we're having a conversation about AI.
And I think the best way to get to the root of those things is the question, you know,
if you don't mind me asking, like I'll say.
And your voice sounds familiar.
I know I know you.
I just don't know this account.
So I'll just say soul for now for the sake of simplicity.
I'll say soul.
Obviously you're on soul.
If you don't mind me asking, what do you like about soul?
If you ask an artist why they meant somewhere, they're gonna tell you 50 reasons why it's
the best idea in the world.
Oh, man, let me tell you.
See, the thing about soul is, and he's gonna tell you 50 reasons why it's great.
And I'll ask 20 more people why they meant on soul.
And I'll find that the answers start getting repetitive, and then I can start zeroing in
on what the benefits are of going there.
And if I have something to contribute meaningfully to that ecosystem, I'll try to.
If I don't, I won't.
I'll use soul.
I just didn't think what I had at the time fit into what I was seeing.
So I just didn't.
Still cool with everybody.
I just didn't make anything.
Avax.
I didn't do anything on Avax until like a month ago.
So it's just being patient, you know, looking to find your people.
And the best way to do that is to show up in these social media vehicles and just broadcast
your like a lighthouse.
You shine your authentic light into the darkness of the Internet.
The people who can see your wavelength and can resonate with it will row their boats
towards you.
And depending on how weird you are, it may take a while for them to get to you.
But if you just keep showing up, that's what that's what I think GM is.
GM isn't like good morning or good night or whatever.
It's I'm still here broadcasting my light.
It's OK to keep rowing towards me because even collectors have their doubts if you're
going to still be here.
So showing up, being present, contributing something other than something to purchase,
contributing meaningfully to whether it's a conversation or if someone needs help or
whatever the thing is.
However, your best let the space make use of you.
And that's the same thing for these communities.
Let them make use of you.
And you'd be surprised how well they take care of you when they when they make liberal
use of you and your talents and your time.
Thank you, Ken.
Kaffani, want to say something?
Well, firstly, I wanted to say I have just for you, Volk and I could just like that's
it.
And yes, I'm sorry.
I'm Ken.
Yeah, I heard what you were saying.
And then I wanted to say something about how you say we have to like flow with the community
and, you know, be up there and stuff.
I was asked, is that part of, you know, replying to good morning tweets and stuff like that?
Because I don't know, I'm not a very interactive, interactive person.
But I also want to show up as best as I can, you know, by trying to, you know, tweet reply
comments, you know, I'm not I can't say I DM people because I I even I don't even DM
Sierra like that, like that or Volk like that, because I I just feel like really shy to DM
talk to people for DM in their DM.
So I prefer like spaces and stuff like that.
So like, can you give like tips on how we can, you know, interacts with the community,
you know, like, like you said, because I would like a bit more clarity on what I can do to
be better you get.
And, you know, reach a lot of other people.
And I'm sure a lot of artists here to like some tips on what to do.
And, you know, I would not I would not say I'm good at that.
So yeah, I just want to ask for tips.
I don't know if you can hear me.
Am I right?
Yeah, I can.
You know, you're fine.
I'm not a GM person either.
I've been written up at jobs because I'm just not a morning person.
And like corporate culture has this weird fake morning positivity shit that I'm a New
Yorker.
I don't feel broad.
I just don't I don't have that.
It's like, hey, good morning.
Make it a great day.
It's like, what do you know?
What I don't even don't I'm not even awake yet.
I'm here, but I'm not here.
I'm not here.
You can finally relate to me not being a morning person because I was telling somebody that
it is too early.
And they were looking like I'm crazy or something.
Well, yeah, that's why it's important to be to be you.
Like there's people who put on the YouTube voice when they come on spaces.
And I just look at them like that's that got to be a burden.
Hey, what's going on?
What's going on?
What a big shout out to the art that's down there.
What's going on?
I see statics here.
Hey, Lily, what's going on?
It's going to be shout out to everybody.
It's a great conversation.
Love the space.
It's like, come on, you know, what you want, Coke?
That's mad crazy.
That's that's not a real personality type.
I don't believe you.
I've met a lot of people.
I'm 43.
I don't think that that's naturally how you wake up.
I think that's more of a thing you put on for social acceptance.
And I think that eventually, because we, unlike other artists, spend a rambunctious amount
of time around each other, eventually the cracks in your facade are going to show.
And then who you really are may not be who you presented yourself as.
So it's important.
And that may not be a bad thing, but it can be.
That's how you see people get canceled.
They're not canceled because they did a thing or said a bad thing.
People say terrible things every day.
They did a bad thing, they got canceled because they pretended to be someone they weren't.
And when the people found out who they were, they didn't like that person.
And that's a problem.
So by being your author, I say crazy shit.
I say crazy shit.
Anyone who knows, I say crazy shit all the time.
I don't get in trouble for it because I've always said crazy shit.
And so I want to go, did you hear what he said?
That's just King.
King's always been like that.
And that doesn't mean everyone's gonna love you.
But that's why I say broadcast your authentic light.
You're not a GM person, madam, nor am I.
I don't GM.
I'll interact with posts of people that I meet.
And as I come across people, it's important to be accepting.
Like I understand that everyone else isn't a grumpy person in the morning like me.
So I don't try to be offended.
What's up, Kane?
Hey, what's going on, bro?
How you doing?
I'm good.
I hang out with shitcoin people and people who like DJs and things like that.
And it's a different culture than what I live.
But I'm cool with them.
The same way outside in life.
My friends growing up were drug dealers.
I don't sell drugs, but my friends do.
That doesn't mean we're just different people.
We have a different job.
So be you.
Be the most authentic you you can be.
And what's going to happen is, depending on how unique your particular personality configuration
is, and you suck a lovely person, people will gravitate.
The people who like people like you will gravitate towards you.
Funny thing is, some of them will be collectors.
Some of them will be devs.
I advise everyone, not advise, but I would recommend for everyone to build your own,
not community because that word gets abused, but build your own social circle.
Like I have mine.
We had a name for it just because I have a telegram group and we had clubhouse chats.
It's called Neighborhood Jewelry.
Neighborhood Jewelry is made up of all kinds of people.
And I used to get people kind of DMing me a little hostile because it's like, why can't
I get into your chat?
It's like because it's not a chat, man, it's not an alpha group.
It's just me and my friends making dick jokes.
That's all we're doing.
It's all of us in there and everyone there is a superhero in their own right.
But when I need something or if we're trying to do something and it becomes work time,
my friends, we're there for each other because we're all similar kinds of people.
Like Balboesky, who's down in the audience, he's one of my friends.
And you wouldn't think so, by the way, I'd be messing around with him sometimes publicly.
But he's my friend, he's a dear friend.
But he don't make what I make.
He doesn't do what I do.
He collects other stuff.
I mean, I think sometimes he collects my work, but he collects other stuff.
But he does AR.
So when I need AR, I reach out to my AR guy.
And this is the benefit I'm saying of like being your authentic self and building around
that.
You're not going to just attract collectors.
And it's important that we take the how do we get these honey bees to bring all the honey
from my series, take it out of what we want out of it and focus most on how can I be of
use.
And that may not be the way you can.
I'll tell you upfront, it may not be the way you thought you'd be of use.
I'm a very impatient person.
Sarcasm is like my fluent language.
I'm kind of a dick sometimes.
I shouldn't be teaching anybody anything in my world.
I've never taught anybody.
That's not the kind of person I am.
But this space, my sales career has made me really good at explaining complicated things.
So I did really good helping onboard people, helping to solve problems, helping new people
get set up.
And that's not what I thought I'd be doing.
I thought I was putting pictures of my raps and selling them to cyber people who gave
me money and like them.
But that's just part of it.
No one knows no one cares how much you know, they know how much you care.
And the space doesn't take care of you until it sees how much you're a value to it.
And the space in this particular context is like an invisible entity of parmetic social
media energy that, you know, there's a space that works for how you are.
And in that version of this place, there's collectors, there's builders, there's friends,
there's associates, there's people who will give you advice, there's people who will talk
you off a ledge, there's people who are going to keep you here through their efforts and
their time and their talent and their personality and their generosity and just who they are.
But finding them is the tricky part.
And expecting them to all be in one place is a fool's errand.
So I go into these places knowing when I see a big new crowd of people that I don't know
anybody.
Yeah, it's it's it's you know, oh man, and I want to clam up and go on my turtle shell.
But I also have to remind myself, you know what, and that 75 people in that room, there's
probably a friend in there.
They just don't know we just ain't met each other yet.
There's probably somebody I'd be really cool with in there.
We just haven't met each other yet.
And even if the energy of the room seems contrary to what I'm about, I go in there, I don't
try to assimilate that way.
I just be my authentic self.
It don't always work out.
But sometimes they'll be like, yeah, yeah, fucking crypto music.
What even is that?
And it's like, you know, just a shootout.
And it turns me getting kicked off the stage.
I'm like, I will.
That's cool.
Someone will DM me.
Hey, man, I thought those guys were kind of dicks to you.
I would love to hear what you got going on.
And then me and that person just have a DM chat for like three days.
And eventually we find ourselves in a space somewhere else.
And then that person becomes more and more familiar.
We're following each other.
And then next thing you know, that person leads to another group of people.
And it's just it's a snowball effect.
You don't have to change who you are.
In fact, I would advise against it.
Be you, but go everywhere as you play yourself in the movie.
And then don't forget to bring more to the potluck than you expect to take.
You know, and if you do that, I'm not saying I guarantee it's going to work.
I'll say that I haven't seen it not work.
And for whatever that's worth, I hope that I hope that answers your question.
Yeah, thank you, Ken.
That actually answers our question.
The aspect that in wherever we are, we have to be ourselves and we don't have to be something
that we are not because eventually that facade is going to clear off and our real selves we
try to show.
And in that in that regard, everybody is going to have your opinion on about different things,
but it's all kind of like depends on you as a person and what you want to do.
So you have to kind of like be authentic, safe in wherever you wherever platform you
want to go.
Like there are a lot of platforms everywhere.
So yeah, it's just about figuring out what works for you.
And can I say one last thing before I'll be quiet?
Also just please, please, please, please, please.
And I know it's rough, but keep in mind things like this or like Lily's spaces, especially
like and Lily does a really good job with it in this space.
You know, it's really good.
I'm happy to feel this kind of energy.
These.
This is not the work.
This is the maintenance.
This isn't the car, the machine functioning.
This is the tune up conversations like this or where you tighten your bolts and you, you
know, change the belt and recharge the engine and voice your concerns to people who you
know understand and you do all that.
But the work is the work.
The work is I don't like discord.
Yeah, but you're ignoring the potential amount of base friends help support by not being
there.
I don't like telegram.
I heard it's dangerous.
Figure out how to interact with it safely and go to telegram.
Figure out how these platforms work.
So it's really important to do that.
But remember like the work is in the uncomfortable.
You have to get comfortable being uncomfortable.
That's the work.
And that in those moments, you'll find the best rewards.
I know a lot of people who aren't public speakers, whether it's English as a second
language situation or just they're just shy people naturally.
And you'll find a lot of that in art.
And that's totally cool for those people.
I would say lean a little heavier on message board style, not social audio style.
So for them clubhouse, probably not going to be the deal, but they do real good on Reddit.
They do real good in telegram chats.
They do decent on discord as long as they don't have to talk for people like me.
I'm a chatty, chatty, chatty.
So I like to talk.
I can talk and type, but I prefer to talk.
It's faster and plus type in things.
My thumbs makes me feel not as bright.
So I like things like Twitter spaces and I like the clubhouse and you can do audio on
discord and on telegram, but I like to do the audio part.
But you have to do both and be comfortable in the uncomfortable.
The pushing ourselves to create the most amazing thing.
That's not the work.
That's something that at least supposedly we're supposed to be wanting to do anyway
because we're artists.
That's supposedly, right?
We're supposed to want to do all that anyway.
How do we be a professional artist is all of the work part and separating the two I
think is imperative.
Okay.
Thank you, Kane.
I think you wanted to say something before.
I agree with what Kane says.
I think that Kane, you touched on something too about finding that person that DMs you
and then kind of pulls you along too.
That's part of it.
And I think that a lot of artists wish that it wasn't part of it because that's work
too where it's a lot of the social interaction and it might not be completely comfortable
with.
But don't forget to bring people with you when that happens too.
And that's part of it as well.
Just like Kane gets pulled, I know Kane pulls as well and says, hey, look, dude, I got this
thing going on.
You need to come with me and let me introduce.
And that's how people, to the authentic part, that's how you take authentic people along
with you.
And Jesus, dude, I can't imagine not being my authentic self because it's got to be so
much work.
And not only is it work, but you're then surrounding yourself with people that don't know who you
are.
And you probably don't even jive with them because you're not being your authentic self.
So you're basically surrounding yourself with a bunch of people you don't really get along
with.
And how enjoyable is that?
This is supposed to be enjoyable.
I like coming to Web3.
Sometimes people are like, man, I'm exhausted.
I don't get exhausted.
I rotate.
I move from thing to thing because it all interests me.
And if I get burnt out from something specific, I just move to the next thing that I enjoy
doing here.
So, yeah.
So surround yourself with good people.
And somebody earlier, you asked the question of how do you start a group?
That's how you start the group.
You DM somebody and you say, hey, look, I heard you talking in a space.
You sound like you and I get along because we have the same concepts on things.
And then all of a sudden, you're DMing.
Then they pull you into another group.
And then you're in another group.
And it's not to be in eight million groups because that's confusing too.
But there's nothing wrong with going out there and putting yourself on that little bit of
a pedestal in that uncomfortable space that Kane mentioned.
So yeah, I'll kick it over to Kafani because then she had her hand up.
Yeah.
Kafani.
Oh, OK.
So I just wanted to say that what Kane said was really, really reasonable.
And yeah, it's just you being yourself and not being a money person, but still doing
the right thing.
And especially on the part where he said we had to do a bit of uncomfortable stuff to
get to where we...
I'll take the message as he did not say to go to where we want to go to.
But I would just take that.
That's what he was saying.
And yeah, I just feel like, oh, we just have to make some sacrifices.
And with what Ciara said before that being an artist is hard and it's just a lot of hard
work, persistency and perseverance and a whole lot of stuff.
So today this space was really amazing because I learned quite a number of things and I connected
with a lot of people too.
So yeah, it was really nice to hear from you guys.
That's all I had to say.
Thank you, Kafani.
So I want to kind of like leave the floor open for Itan Ward and So6ix9ine to tell us
about what they are working on now and any new projects they are working on.
Yeah.
Starting from you, Ciara.
Sure.
Goodness.
There's always stuff in the works.
Before I answer that, I just wanted to thank Kane for coming up and sharing his perspective.
Also being a New Yorker, I just love to hear from fellow New Yorkers, I find our accent
very soothing, although other people find it abrasive and obnoxious.
I found it very, it felt like home.
So thank you very much.
I appreciate you.
That aside, in terms of what Itan is working on, we're always working on stuff.
Things are always in the pipelines.
The big things right now, we had a pre-order for our first physical book.
The last several weeks, we met the minimum order.
So I'm working on the design with the publisher and it's going into production.
If you go to the Itan Twitter in our link tree, it's linked to the pre-order link if
you're interested in buying the book.
It's basically a hardcover book that just has beautiful printed images of a lot of the
digital exhibitions that we've done over the last year.
For many of the artists in the collective, this is going to be the first time they get
to see their work in print.
So it's much deserved.
I'm very excited about that.
As soon as the book is available physically, I am going to send a few copies across Nigeria.
I'll send a few to Lagos, I'll send a few to Abuja, particularly to the photographers
in the group so they can see it and take photos of it and things like that so it can make
its rounds.
The other big thing that's happening in the next couple of weeks is, as I mentioned, there's
been a lot of changes with Foundation, which has been our primary platform.
We still have exhibitions running on Foundation through the end of the year on base in particular
and we're going to continue to promote them.
But as we shift into 2025, we're really looking to make Object our main marketplace in terms
of where we do exhibitions.
So we'll be opening our Object gallery.
I'm super excited about that.
They have a very robust gallery and exhibition experience that it's clear to me they spent
a lot of time building and they were very intentional about.
So I'm excited to just offer our community another avenue in terms of ways to monetize
their talent.
Other than that, yeah, we're building Nija on chain.
As I mentioned, it'll be an IRL experience hopefully in 2025.
We have successfully raised some funds for the event.
Emmanuel from Optimism is Nigerian and gave us our first donation for the event.
God bless him.
Also BASE gave us a grant that was awarded to Etan that will be put toward the event
as well in terms of paying for the venue and the other things necessary.
So that's coming to fruition.
To stay updated in terms of everything else happening, because there's always things happening,
follow me, follow Etan, follow the artists in the collective.
We're always retweeting them on the Etan page.
Thank you.
Thank you for this platform.
Thank you for connecting me with people I hadn't previously met in the space who are
doing like-minded work and just making the effort to show up every day and create a space
that makes artists feel welcomed and valued.
My DMs are open if anyone resonated with anything I said and wants to further collaborate.
I'm here.
Thank you, Vulcan.
Appreciate you.
Thank you, Sarah.
Static, do you have any projects you've got going on for Soul69?
Give me one second.
I'm sorry.
I'm dealing with something.
So give me one second.
Kafani, you want to say something?
Yes, I want to be petting and say Sarah, it's only Vulcan you appreciate.
Me and Godiqo are hosts.
That's all I have.
Oh my God.
That is hilarious because every time she gets on spaces, she wants to pretend that she's
a shy person and everyone who knows Kafani knows she is the furthest thing from a shy
person.
I said let us move on and she was going to show herself.
Are you not showing yourself, Kafani?
I'm not trying to be shy.
I just, I don't mean my ethics.
I'm very shy.
I don't know what to say.
That's the thing.
I prefer talking to people.
You see, I even have something to tell Sarah, but so enter her DM and type it.
I'm just gathering.
No, don't.
No, no, no.
This is why you don't do this.
Yeah.
But then it was nice to catch up with Sarah.
It's hard to see you in this space.
And hi, Koopty.
And Koopty is also one of my very close friends.
I also see Chun Li, Gizou, everybody that came to our space.
It was nice to have you.
Kane, this is the first time we're interacting.
So it was nice to hear you speak.
So 6ix9ine.
It was nice to hear you speak too.
And yeah, Volker, you did not tell me about the So 6ix9ine people.
I'm going to go and see how I can apply because they're very insightful.
Sorry.
Okay, so 6ix9ine has something to say.
No, absolutely go apply.
No, sorry about that.
My heat in my house was broken and somebody was here trying to help me fix it.
So that's, we'll be back Monday.
So anyway, no, look, I just wanted to thank you guys all for hanging out and I appreciate
everything.
And to kind of answer your question from before Volk and what's going on right now, there's
a lot.
But look, I would tell you that the best thing you can do if you really want to know is for
one, obviously, we're working, like I touched on a little bit before, we're working on a
one on one curation for some of the people that are currently working with the curations
that were going on Drip to get some of those ones to move.
The other thing I would encourage you to do is go into that link at the top that says,
starts with I'm honored to be surrounded by great like those artists that are in that
that that link, right?
Those are some really, really solid people.
Okay, don't worry about the I'm not going to say artists, they're people, right?
They're awesome human beings.
And you know, those links and that art will take you to their sites where it will take
you to other places.
And you can find a lot of them on our website as well, which is in my bio.
And then the last thing I put up there, just so you guys have it, is that curation application,
like Kevon just said, like, we're, I'm going to focus on this one on one that we're going
to do first, because it has to be a priority.
Like I don't want other people that have been part of the curations to have any pieces that
are sitting unless they're they're happy with them sitting.
And I just want to make sure that we're focusing where our attention needs to be.
But those curations, like I said, it's it's it's you is focused on you.
I think I do a good job, right?
So like, you know, please feel free to apply.
If you don't hear right back from me, just shoot me a DM.
Okay, even if you have questions, just shoot me a DM.
My DMs, my DMs are open.
So yeah, that's, that's it.
But I appreciate you, Yavalk, and I appreciate you too, Kevon, and Sierra.
It was very nice talking to you today.
Kane, thanks for hopping up here.
I definitely appreciate always hearing what you got to say.
And then check out some of the artists in the in the group down below too, because like
I said, there's just a there's a bunch of good people in the room.
So that's it.
Thanks.
Thank you, Static.
And thank you, Sierra.
Thank you, everyone in particular for coming to join in space and putting one, two things
and contributing to make this space a success in total.
Thank you, Kane.
Your thoughts were very, very, yeah, I learned a lot.
And I could kind of like keep on going like from each of your ideas and opinions about
different things.
Yeah, I could, I could relate with, I could relate with a lot of them.
So yeah, thank you for what you said about like collaboration in in general.
And I feel like the music spaces, I don't really, I haven't really known much about
the music spaces and something that I'm kind of like, really curious about.
So I would like to kind of like know more about that.
How do you people normally?
How do you people normally kind of like collaborate together as music artists and everything?
I know people do a lot of features with each other and do drops.
And it's not that I don't do them.
I've done them.
I do them kind of sparingly or selectively or whatever.
Gorilla who onboarded me, I've done, I got a drop with him going on.
Like I always, you know, whatever he needs, I'm always there to help.
And I've done stuff with kind of some of my folks who build the idea and just asked me
to participate or whatever.
And that's, you know, no problem with that.
And people do all kinds of ways of collaborating.
It's not different.
And that's the hard part is convincing the music side that that we're not different,
that this is not the music business.
This is, you know what I'm saying?
This is closer to rare art than it is to anything resembling the music business.
So you know, getting musicians to understand that it's not competition is tough because
we have a very competitive medium where it's like just the monetization of it.
They put down three bowls of food in a kennel with 70 dogs and make us fight for it.
And that's kind of the world we know, especially for rap.
So getting those guys to like put their knives away and understand that we're all just competing
against our respective poverty.
That's all we're competing with, like just competing for your life, competing with your
life though.
That's all we're doing.
So I think working with each other is good.
But again, I don't overemphasize us having to make art together to collaborate.
There's stuff that I need help with or things that I don't know or someone needs something
and I just know and someone's like, hey, I'm trying to get this and we'll brainstorm.
I think brainstorming is way more fun than us making a song.
Like, what are you doing?
What's the plan?
Like my buddy just did a whole like Styles P remix album on Manifold.
And I'm just like, well, what is it?
And it's like, I'm not, hey, let me get a verse on there.
It's like, no, no, what are you doing?
What's the drop?
I was, oh, we're going to do this.
Well, why don't you try this?
But collaborating through shared information, I find to be the best, the best collaboration,
at least for me, it's the best collaboration.
Like, hey, why don't you try that?
He was going to do this kind of unlockable content and I recommended it.
Why don't you try using dark block and doing it this way?
And he's like, oh, that's a cool idea.
So I don't get anything for it.
I don't want anything for it.
I just want everyone to do well.
And that's in that spirit.
This becomes a lot easier.
So the music side isn't different.
It's all still rare art.
We all still are trying to collect collectors.
We're all still going chain to chain.
I mean, the mechanics of being a Web3 crypto native artist of any discipline, whether it's
fine art, photography, 3D, AI, music, whatever it is, it's all going to, I think it all pans
out the same.
Okay.
Thank you, Ken.
Yeah.
So I would like to be joining the music spaces at one point.
And yeah, I'll likely just send a message about that.
And I would like to know more about like the music spaces because I was in the time pieces.
I don't know this piece, the Fishered Violator.
And yeah, I think it was the good news.
So I don't know time piece or something.
Yeah.
The Fishered Violator, when she kind of like made a sale, a one BTC sale on one of our
pieces which I found really inspiring.
Kafany.
Yeah.
You want to say something?
Kafany, right?
Yeah.
I want to say that Kane was into music.
And yeah, I found I really like that because I'm such a big music person.
Music is like an inspiration for me.
And yeah, I just want to say that I'm working on a music album cover in real life.
And I don't know if it's something that is like interesting if you do music covers for
your work.
So like if it's something you do, like I would be like interested in collaborating with you
because I like collaborating.
I'm even collaborating on something with like Volkan and stuff like we're in the early stage.
So yeah, I just want to say that if it's something you're interested in, I would like to work
on your music cover too.
Maybe sometime in the future.
That's what I wanted to say.
I don't know.
Amir, Volkan, how are you?
Yes, I can hear you.
Yeah, thank you.
I appreciate it.
Hit me up.
Whatever.
I make AI music videos.
That's traditionally what I've been making.
So I'll take a song and I'll make a whole video out of AI.
I've been doing this since like the summer of 21.
So I just make these AI music videos and sometimes after a lot of effort, the dots connect and
some people seem to like them and when they do, I'm very fortunate.
And recently, I did a Bitcoin infused album with an AR vinyl record and that was a lot
of fun and that was a token but obviously it was a physical component.
And right now we're working on like an Ordinals music player kind of in the style of Async
if anyone knows what Async is and we're building that.
That's done but we're just tinkering a little bit of stuff so probably it'll launch in two
weeks.
But yeah, I'm always open to working with stuff and hit me up and Volkan wherever I
am, feel free to walk in.
Like it's, you know, that happens.
Say, hey, I'm just here because Kane's here.
Cool.
Come on up.
Let's talk about stuff, engage in the conversation.
Ask any question you want and that's the one thing that I'll say like is pretty indicative
like 80% of the time, 85% of the time listen somewhere weird.
Wherever I am, ask whatever because like I just one of the things I just never had a
lot of patience for is like someone trying to gain information and someone kind of taking
the piss or making a joke out of it like at one point we're all new or we all didn't know
something and I think every day especially for us that are learning and growing every
day is a day we don't know something that we're trying to know.
So if someone's seeking information like stop the nonsense for a second, answer the question,
help them.
You know, it's okay to cut the antics just to help somebody like that.
I joke around all the time.
I'm dead serious kind of sounding now because I just woke up and my coffee hasn't taken
effect but generally speaking, I dig around a lot so but I'll stop all the night.
I have a question how does this work or how did that work or why does someone do this
or why do you think people collect this or you know whatever the question is, I think
it's always the dumbest question is the one you don't ask and again anywhere I go it's
an open invitation for anyone who wants to come through, ask, learn, build, you know
try to read the room.
Everywhere in a good place to show your work but definitely it's always a good place to
learn and try to grow.
Yeah right.
She always kind of like also read the room because yeah some people just kind of like
try to yeah and possibly because they don't know what's what the space was about in the
onset so it could happen to anyone at the same time.
So in that regard, I would like to thank everybody for coming to the first episode of Art of
Framed, first our guest Sierra Static, Itan World and Solsixnine.
Thank you for coming into the space and featuring in our first episode of Art of Framed and
it was a pleasure to have you all and thank you Kane for coming and sharing your thoughts
and putting everything out there.
And thank you for all the people that came up to ask a question about what they thought
about the topic.
It was lovely having all your thoughts out there and thank you to all the listeners.
So Kavani do you have any last thoughts?
Okay as a math form student I just have to do this.
Okay guys thank you for coming to our first episode of Art of Framed.
I have been Kafani and Vulcan.
I'm just the co-host.
It was nice to see you guys.
It was nice to learn from you guys and I hope we catch up some other time.
Bye.