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the best time for artists

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Hey! Earlier this week I reshared Hits Daily Double’s most-streamed artists list of 2022. The responses say a lot about how fragmented music is now. A lot of people didn’t know who NBA YoungBoy is, and he’s #2 on the list. Many others couldn’t name a Bad Bunny song, and he’s #4.

This lines up with a lot of recent articles like too many songs not enough hits, is hip-hop cooling down, and majors becoming less dependent on superstars. I talk about what this all means in The Culture Report. Can’t wait to share on Monday!

Today’s memo has insights from the interview I did with Rory Felton, co-founder and CEO of HitPiece, which brings artists and fans together through NFTs. It didn’t go well, but the company has since relaunched and now works with Rick Ross, ATL Jacob, and more.

HitPiece is one of our sponsors this quarter, and I wanted to have Rory on to discuss the company’s initial launch. We talk about what went wrong, what HitPiece has done to improve, how they plan to rebuild trust, and bigger trends in the industry. Let’s dive in.

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how HitPiece rebounded and relaunched

Rory Felton has spent most of his past two decades in music being pro-artist. He developed talent and sold millions of records under his Militia Group label that he co-founded and eventually sold to Sony. In the early days of social media, Rory worked with Top 40 artists and majors to monetize on these new platforms. That’s why it was ironic that Rory was recently criticized for being anti-artist.

Rory founded HitPiece two years ago. HitPiece is an NFT marketplace focused solely on music collections. While in beta earlier this year, unauthorized NFTs from big-name artists became available for purchase on HitPiece. HitPiece was hit with widespread backlash from artists, the RIAA, and many others for copyright infringement. The company quickly went dark while the team recalibrated its business.

Months later, HitPiece has now re-launched. This time with strictly-authenticated collections on-site from rising artists like ATL Jacob, Pyrex Whippa, and proven commodities such as Rick Ross. A metaverse add-on is also in the works to virtually display purchased NFTs. In many ways, the industry-wide blowback changed both Rory and HitPiece. The company’s intent has stayed consistent from the get-go: to make NFTs easy for both artists and fans.

earning back trust

HitPiece’s failed beta brought Rory and his team back to the drawing board. Not only was the idea of a complete rebrand kicked around, but the group even brought up whether it was worth continuing the business altogether. In the end, the group’s decision made itself.

Rory re-built trust in HitPiece by explaining what went wrong to artists and music executives — many of which expressed optimism in prior conversations before the beta release. But it’s not just negative sentiment around HitPiece that Rory is up against inside the industry, but also the perception of NFTs at large.

Rory’s pitch to web3 skeptics is simple: the new technology enables what already existed inside the industry and that’s fan clubs or VIP experiences. The only difference is blockchain allows for a deeper artist-fan relationship and increased ownership for both sides.

co-existing with the industry, not replacing it

Arguably, some of the hesitation inside the music industry to NFTs is the narrative being pushed by many web3 founders and enthusiasts: The narrative that blockchain will completely upend the supposed antiquated and non-artist friendly system that exists today.

Rory isn’t that dogmatic. Having spent his career inside the industry, he disagrees with how many web3 founders characterize music execs as being anti-artists. What Rory is trying to do with HitPiece is add a new layer to what already exists.

This is the reason why all partnerships HitPiece does with artists are non-exclusive. That includes an upcoming drop with fast-rising producer ATL Jacob. Many pieces of that drop will include real-life experiences, such as studio sessions with ATL Jacob himself.

Rory is quick to point out that a fan-artist experience like that would be infinitely harder to pull off without web3. There would be too many gatekeepers to bypass before an experience like that could ever happen, and that’s ultimately the value-add web3 brings.

the best time to be an artist

Rory’s intro into the music business came in the late ’90s as a 16-year-old. Naturally, his big focus at the time was helping sell records for local artists and bands. This continued into the 2000s with his own co-founded label, The Militia Group.

While he did cut his teeth in the CD era, he doesn’t yearn for the past. He believes that we’re now in a golden age of music, particularly for artists.

Rory believes music has been re-valued in the streaming era and that web3 is the next natural progression. He already knows of artists that have earned more from NFT drops than months of streaming by catering to their super fans.

Listen to our full conversation here:

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​https://trapital.co/2022/10/27/how-hitpiece-rebounded-and-relaunched-after-controversy/​

money moves

• Need a producer agreement? Create an offer and negotiate terms quickly with Charta. Use coupon code TRAPITAL to get started for $1.*
• New report on four predictions for the creator economy​
• ​Meet Lex: the AI writing tool (sharing because it’s only a matter of time before AI helps songwriters!)
• ​The impact of Amazon Music’s price increase (relevant to Apple Music’s upcoming and Spotify’s inevitable price increases)

*This is sponsored

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