World-renowned Techno DJ and producer UMEK is the latest music artist to announce an NFT drop. His will be unique, as he is the first ever to offer a live performance NFT.
The historic release is organized in partnership with the Blockparty digital marketplace and the music research and analytics platform Viberate, which will be verifying the drop.
Starting on April 29 and running for 24 hours, UMEK’s offer on the Blockparty marketplace will include five different NFTs: three exclusive remixes of his seminal 1999 track “Lanicor”, one livestream performance, and one live gig. The buyers of UMEK’s NFT will thus either purchase the rights to one of his original remixes, book him for an exclusive online event, or book him for a real-life live performance.
UMEK sees the drop as a new possibility for music artists to secure live gigs in the future. “I’ve been actively involved in the crypto scene for the last couple of years, especially as Viberate, the music research and analytics platform I co-founded, also includes blockchain technology. I was definitely inspired by NFTs and all the creative ways other artists went about them, so I developed my own concept: booking live gigs through NFTs. We’re all painfully aware that live events are returning very slowly, so this could be an opportunity for any artist, big or small, to make sure they have a booking waiting for them once live gigs are back in the picture.”
Several music artists, such as Grimes, Steve Aoki, Kygo, Don Diablo and Kings of Leon, have already made waves selling their NFTs, either as albums, VIP tickets, digital art or other concepts. UMEK’s upcoming drop is the first to explore new possibilities for music artists to secure their bookings, no matter whether they’re backed by major labels or working independently. If the concept proves to be successful, Viberate plans on providing their unique verification and token-minting services to hundreds of thousands of artists in their database.
UMEK’s NFT drop will launch on Blockparty on Thursday, April 29, 2021, at 8:00 pm GMT+1 (3:00 pm EST).