Why Musicians Need to Learn About NFTs with Dijon Bowden

In this episode of Freedom with NFT’s Dijon Bowden shares with us about:

1. His background before NFTs
2. Diving in and investing in NFTs
3. NFT learning with his mentor
4. Advice for musicians that are new to NFTs
5. Next step in his musician NFT journey

• Musician course

6. Communities recommended for musicians

• Royal
• Audius
• Opulous

7. What is he looking forward to in the incoming months

8. Biggest lesson in his NFT journey

About Dijon Bowden:

Dijon Bowden is a multi-dimensional artist who believes in self-actualization as a means to inspire others to ignite their own divinity. The meditation retreats and yoga teacher training he has attended has allowed him to sustain a powerful connection to Source energy and channel visionary art. Storytelling, music, poetry, photography, and filmmaking are vehicles he uses to share high vibrational healing energy. His musical project Indigo Keys creates cosmic soundscapes that are accompanied by cinematic visuals to create epic soulful experiences that speak to the human heart and soul. His storytelling project SOULS of Society aims to create compassion, empathy, and spiritual awareness and has made millions of impressions online.

[00:00:00] Lauren Turton: The web three and NFT journey is so special because you get to know your friends from web two in such a different way. In web three, I am very excited to have Dijon Bowden on this episode of freedom with NFTs. Dijon is a multi-passionate creator and teacher. Who has had incredible experiences in regards to leveraging NFTs in his musical career.

Welcome to freedom with NFTs. Dijon, how are you today?

[00:00:22] Dijon Bowden: Great. Thanks so much for having me, Lauren. It’s a pleasure as always.

[00:00:25] Lauren Turton: I’m so excited to get into some of the stories that you’ve had during this journey, but before we do that, tell us what your background is in?

[00:00:32] Dijon Bowden: So I’ve been in entrepreneurial creative for over a decade now. I’ve done photography and storytelling and videography and poetry. And basically any time I see someone doing something inspiring in the creative field, I usually want to try my hand at it too, and just like to learn about it and see how I make my way of it.

[00:00:47] Lauren Turton: Thank you for sharing that with us. I’m curious to know, when did you first find out about NFTs?

[00:00:52] Dijon Bowden: So it was sometime last year in 2021. I’m not sure when the exact moment was, but I know that they were very popular and in the news a lot. So I was learning about them. And then you actually became super into NFTs and pivoted into the space and started doing your podcast. So as you had been my coach for business before, and now you’re making this huge pivot that actually prompted me to pay a lot more attention to it.

And then we went to art Basel together. And I filmed one of your speaking segments and you were talking about NFTs and a few different panels there. And a musician, crypto rapper named Dale spoke after you did and everything he had to say about NFTs really like pulling me in. And I was like, okay, this is definitely the future for music, and I want to learn more about it.

So that’s when I like really invested and dove in.

[00:01:31] Lauren Turton: Tell us about what you mean in regards to investing in, diving in what did you take action on?

[00:01:35] Dijon Bowden: Well, I mean, literally invested. So when Dale gave his talk about his journey with NFTs and where he saw the music industry going, he also was pitching his own NFTs for sale. So he had been a musical artists for well over a decade and has hundreds of millions of streams and has had a lot of success and the traditional music industry, but he was giving a behind the scenes look that financially, like in that year or so, even though he had streamed probably 200 and something million times, he only made maybe like $6,000 worth of streams from Spotify.

So in the last year, at that time that he had been pushing his own NFTs with his own community, that he had been building with Twitter spaces, he had made over 60 K and that was last year. And I know this year he had a salon drop when he first started offering his NFTs on that platform. And I think he sold out like in less than 30 minutes and made 70 K on that one.

So the path that he was taking was just clearly a more lucrative and he also retained ownership of what he was doing. So I was like, I need to learn how to do what he’s doing. So I bought one of his VIP NFTs, which also gave me access to him as my mentor in the NFT space. So I had people like you that kind of opened the door to the beginning.

And then I had someone like him to be able to actually have consult me when I had questions or to show me how to buy things or basically anything I needed to know. He was there to help me out with.

[00:02:48] Lauren Turton: That’s absolutely incredible that you took action on that and found a mentor in the space. Can you share with us some of the learnings that took place during your time with Dell?

[00:02:56] Dijon Bowden: Yeah. So, you know, I’m still a VIP holder of his NFT so I still can reach out to him any time and we’ve developed a friendship and we even made a song together, which is now out. So that’s pretty amazing. It’s his first song that he’s made with one of his VIP NFT holders. So it’s cool to be the first in something but what I learned is it’s just important to take action and move forward. Even if things seem unfamiliar or daunting, because I knew about NFTs and I had kind of heard about them, but there’s only so much you can understand before you’re committed to learning about them, because anything you want to learn about you have to dive into right.

if you want to learn language, then you have to study it and maybe go to the country or practice it with people. You can’t just look at people speaking at sometimes every once in a while and say, okay, I’m going to learn it. Like you have to immerse yourself in the process. So crypto in general is it’s important to do that.

And NFT are a sub category of crypto. That’s important to immerse yourself in and the community is very welcoming. So I know you do Twitter spaces a lot. Dell does Twitter spaces a lot. If you’re curious, all you have to do is tap in and learn the language, learn the culture, invest in the community with your time, try to offer whatever services do you have.

And people will reciprocate that energy.

[00:03:55] Lauren Turton: Absolutely. Absolutely So many golden nuggets in what you just said Dijon. Thank you for sharing for any musicians who are just finding out about NFTs. What advice do you give them?

[00:04:04] Dijon Bowden: So I definitely think that NFTs are the way of the future for pretty much everything, but specifically music for a lot of reasons, because for me, And this goes more to the ideology and the financial aspect, but we’ll start with the ideology. So for me, music is a spiritual technology. Like everything that exists in life is a vibration.

Everything is existing at a certain frequency and the differences between things are differences in vibratory rates of that matter. And the simplest example is like water, because water can be ice, it can be water, or it can be steam, right. But those are all the same chemical compounds, but they’re vibrating at different frequencies.

So what else vibrates at different frequencies notes and music? Right. So the difference between an A and a G is the frequency rate at which something is vibrating at the faster, something vibrates, the higher you hear that, so for me, the most powerful thing you can do is be a conscious manipulator of vibrations, AKA a musician.

Right. So if you’re a musician, you have the ultimate power. And I think there’s certain people that have exemplified that throughout history. Like the Beatles, or Bob Marley. And if you take the route with NFTs, where you have ownership and you’re building a community around your authentic expression, then you can create whatever you want.

But as most people are aware, the music industry is corrupt to say the least. And it’s a lot of people feeding off of the creative energy that artists cultivate. And if you’re going through that industry, you have to commercialize whatever it is that you’re selling to some degree. Right. And you have to fit into a certain formula.

So that’s taking away your authenticity and you’re also not creating your own unique vibration for the world to experience. So just as a creative, which I am, I want to be able to make the music that I feel passionate about. And that as authentic to me and take the long route of building a community that resonates with that as opposed to fit into a cookie cutter mold that is constantly changing, based on whatever trend is going on.

So that’s ideologically why it’s so important to be connected with NFTs because you retain ownership and you have freedom to create as you want. But the other aspect is financial because when bands get signed when acts get signed and they get advances from record labels, all that money that you get goes to propelling your career, but then you’re giving up ownership of the things that you create.

So we’ve heard of lots of cases of musicians going to war with their labels later in their career, trying to get their masters back. And it’s like, if you don’t have your masters, you don’t really control your life. People can also use your music, how they see fit, right. So they can put it on some ad or do all these things with it because they’re just concerned about recouping their expense.

They’re taking a product and trying to monetize it right. As opposed to creating something, to spread more love or connection, or human authenticity. So it’s a longer route and we’re in the new time or the industry. But like I mentioned, with Dale, he’s made, you know, 10 to 15 times the amount in a year with this NFT path than he has just from streaming royalties on Spotify.

[00:06:49] Lauren Turton: So you’ve created a song with famous Dale. You’ve gotten mentorship. You’ve really learned how to leverage NFTs. And with this experience, share with us what are the next steps for you in your musical NFTs journey?

[00:07:02] Dijon Bowden: Yeah. So the process of creating with Dale was really organic and natural. And I actually went to visit him when he was visiting his parents in California. And we shot some content for an NFT for musicians course that I’m co-creating with him. And some other people that have done well in the space. So after we shot his segment, I was at that time making a song every day.

And I had my iPad with me. I just made the song while he had dinner with his family, I went and grabbed some pizza, made a song, came back. I was like, listen to this. And he was like, that’s dope. I’ll record something to it right now. think about that. He is a musician that has over 200 million streams on Spotify.

Right. And I was at his house, one getting him to participate in a course I’m creating and also getting him to record on a song that I made all by virtue of buying his NFTs. So I develop that personal relationship with him through buying his NFT, which, I mean, can you access Beyonce like that? Like, can you access any other famous musician?

No. And there actually is one artist, soulja boy who probably a lot of people know who as part of his NFT package is offering features on their album. So like, he’ll do a verse on your song. If you purchase a certain tier of his NFT. So it’s creating a certain level of connection that did not exist before in the same way that like Twitter does, because you can tweet at somebody and they may respond.

So it’s like removing the middleman from the equation and allowing direct interaction with people. And now I started with that one NFT from Dale, but now I own like ten. Right. Because I saw how committed he is to the process of building his community. I saw how reliable he was and his interaction with me.

And now I like spread his gospel everywhere. So like, that’s an example of what you can do, just like representing your art through the NFT spectrum. So for me, I’m just trying to learn as much as I can from him and cultivate the same type of community and career. It’s not an overnight thing.

You know, it’s like the day to day connecting with you and telling you about it and spreading the word on this podcast and doing Twitter spaces and making Instagram reels and Tiktok about the things I’m learning and slowly educating people more and more, and getting them to buy into what NFTs can do for artists and musicians specifically.

[00:08:51] Lauren Turton: This is such an exciting journey you are on, and as someone who is an educator, a teacher, it’s only natural that you would take what it is that you’re learning through your experience with Dale and now spreading this knowledge for others. I’m really excited to see what the next steps are with this course, for any other programs that you’re going to be taking. Are there any other communities that you can recommend for musicians to check out, to support their NFT journey?

[00:09:13] Dijon Bowden: Yeah, for sure. There’s three main communities that I like to follow and keep tabs on what they’re doing. One is called Royal and they’ve partnered with a few big name, artists like Nas most recently, and he sold a portion of his royalties for one of his songs as an NFT. Audius is another one and it’s a blockchain based streaming service.

So it’s just more equitable in the, whether it’s tribute royalties, and you can get money by cultivating your own community there. And you don’t have to have 200 million streams like you do on Spotify to get paid. They also have a feature where you can make money as a fan. For being a fan of somebody’s stuff and resharing their stuff, because you’re also contributing value to the audience ecosystem.

And also to that artist that you’re promoting. So that’s just a long with a web three ideology that all ships rise with the tide. So anyone’s, that is contributing to the elevation of this movement. And to this more equitable way of relating deserves to benefit from that. And the final one I would say is opulous, it’s OPULOUS.

And they’re specifically a company that’s about music NFTs. They actually just released, NFTs which are music NFTs. So I would go on their Twitter on their medium and read up more what that’s about, but essentially you’re able to buy fractionalized shares of musicians work. Like they have a drop with this musician coming out on may 26.

His name is Kyle and you get to buy a fractional piece of his album. So as the album is successful in streaming, you are receiving royalties from that process. And basically what that’s doing is taking the energy out of a label and making the crowd, the label like everyone is invested. So if it’s an artists you invested in and you already like anyways, then of course, you’re going to share it with people and be like, yo, check out this dude.

People do that anyways, because they’re excited about music. But imagine if you can make money off of that as well. So right now, most of those platforms are for already more well-established artists. And I know that it will trickle down eventually to artists like myself that are more getting started.

I mean, you can always just upload stuff on Opensea or mint songs. But these bigger platforms that are specifically designed for music NFTs will be inviting us since soon.

[00:11:15] Lauren Turton: It’s wonderful to see the collaboration. And like you said, we all rise together in the web three space during your experiences over these last months, you’ve made so much progress. So many connections have learned new technology. What are you looking forward to in these upcoming months?

[00:11:30] Dijon Bowden: I’m just looking forward to creating more music and learning and learning how to market it and create community around it, because it was so much fun. You know, like this style of music that I created with Dale which is hip hop and specifically crypto rap, the name of the song is called FOMO. And I haven’t heard really anything done like that before in the energy that we were releasing.

So as a creative, it’s fun to expand my creative palette and offering, and then to really dial in by releasing just singles that I vibe with how to engage the community and how to educate people because the song is a crypto rap song, but it’s actually educational about how to enter into the NFT and crypto market.

And I know maybe that would sound kind of like lame because it’s not like a Sesame street rhyme. It’s actually like a cool swagged out vibe but it also is educational. So I feel like mainstream hip hop in a lot of ways is a can be low vibrational and the things that they’re talking about or how they’re talking about things, but if you can incorporate something that’s elevating and also that swaggy energy, that’s like the best way to information for me and that’s also the type of legacy that I want to leave.

[00:12:25] Lauren Turton: I’m really looking forward to seeing what comes through and these next months for you, before we wrap this interview up, will you share with us what your biggest learning lesson has been so far during your NFT journey?

[00:12:35] Dijon Bowden: Yeah, I would say just to be comfortable not knowing and to be comfortable being a beginner like I still consider myself a beginning. And I don’t know everything. You know, the landscape is constantly evolving. Things are being created all the time and to maintain that energy of curiosity and willingness to learn cause there’s no shame in saying, I don’t know or saying, what does that mean? Or can you explain that? And what I found is that people in this community are very much willing to answer any and all questions and support each other to this next phase of life that we’re co-creating.

[00:13:04] Lauren Turton: Absolutely. Absolutely Dijon. And how can we stay in contact with you?

[00:13:08] Dijon Bowden: So I have a podcast and an IG NFTs for musicians. So you can find some educational reels or educational podcasts with people for myself or with people in the industry also. And I’ll just be populating that more so we can all learn together.

[00:13:21] Lauren Turton: Thank you so much Dijon for sharing so many golden nuggets and so much value. I know this is going to help so musicians who are already in the space, who’s just finding out about nFTs. I appreciate your energy and your time today freedom with NFTs audience you know, the drill. Please share this episode with your community so that more people can learn about, this incredible technology that can truly disrupt and change what has been going on for many years, that is negative as always get informed and get involved. I’m your host, Lauren Turton. We’ll see you on the next one.

Connect with Dijon Bowden:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dijonbowden/

Podcast: https://podbay.fm/p/nfts-for-musicians

Twitter: https://twitter.com/dijonbowden

Connect with your host, Lauren Turton:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LaurenTurton_

Website: freedomwithnfts.com

Discord Community: https://bit.ly/fnftsdiscord