Lupe Fiasco Believes Blockchain Technology Can Lead the Music Industry Revolution
American rapper Lupe Fiasco in a recent interview with Business Insider shared his thoughts on cryptocurrency and blockchain technology especially regarding its potential impact on the music industry.
Blockchain, Crypto, Collectibles, and Music
The interview came following his participation in a technology summit with Autodesk. The Chicago-born rapper, whose real name is Wasalu Muhammad Jaco, talked about a wide-range of issues concerning both cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. He also touched on how the emerging technology could be applied to solve some of the pressing issues within the music industry.
On the subject of cryptocurrencies, he referred to them as being akin to collector items like baseball cards and vintage troll dolls. He stated the belief that people will somehow always contrive to find ways to create speculative commodities that could be used as a vehicle to accumulate money over time.
Fiasco also went on to say that the speculative nature of cryptocurrencies means that some people will win while others will lose. To him, it is the blockchain, the technology behind bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, that is of the most interest as far any economic consideration is concerned.
During the interview, the rapper focused more on blockchain technology and its implications on the music industry. Lupe Fiasco has over the years had a number of fall outs with music executives. He is also known as to have anti-establishment sentiments and they were expressed during his interview with Business Insider.
He spoke at length on the potential of blockchain technology to revolutionize the music industry, creating a framework that enables recording artists to receive fair compensation for their art finally. Of particular interest to him is the way in which the technology could revamp the music licensing process.
Disrupting the Gatekeepers
In a 2015 interview with Billboard, he accused streaming service, Spotify, of destroying music. The musician has long held the stance that services like Spotify and iTunes are contributing to the devaluation of music saying that their services make music akin to a utility like water.
The Chicago native is also critical of the way in which businesses are structured to exclude the artists and other creatives in the earnings from royalties and sales of music licenses. He reiterated many of these sentiments during the interview while identifying blockchain as a viable solution to many of those issues above.
Lupe Fiasco isn’t alone in the movement to use blockchain to disrupt the music scene. Record producer Grammatik and Grammy-award winning singer-producer Imogen Heap have also expressed strong opinions about the use of blockchain technology to upset the current operating framework of the music industry.
Grammatik even agreed to sign up with SingularDTV in November 2018. SingularDTV is a blockchain-based company that is aiming to tokenize the intellectual property of musicians. By so doing, artists and other creatives in the music industry can bypass record labels and other intermediaries when trying to raise the necessary funds for their music.
