Show notes
Music NFTs are all the rage as of late. Entering the mix is Young M.A, who dropped a capsule on April 19. But in true Young M.A fashion, she took a different approach to her first-ever NFT project.For one, each NFT is only $20, making it widely accessible to her diehard fanbase. That’s a departure from most artists-focused NFTs that are on the pricier side due to their limitedness. In total, Young M.A dropped five NFT collections with 250 editions in each — for a total of 1,250. Each of the five collections represents key moments in Young M.A’s career. From first going viral with her Brooklyn Chiraq freestyle to the smashing success of “OOOUUU” and other highlights. Moreover, the capsule is exclusive to new NFT marketplace Serenade. The platform prides itself on being eco-friendly in an industry widely criticized for its energy consumption. The NFT collection is just one way Young M.A is staying connected to her fans these days. She’s also on tour and has continued to invest in non-music products like her adult toy line. Here’s everything we covered in this episode:[0:00] Seeing where things go[2:45] Purpose Behind Young M.A’s NFT Drop[9:29] Surprising Price Point For Young M.A’s NFT Capsule[10:14] Young M.A Has Hesitations About The Drop (Honest Talk) [12:32] Prioritizing Long-Term Impact With Business Ventures[12:55] Young M.A’s Relationship With Fame[15:37] How Young M.A Approaches Non-Music Business Ventures[20:10] Partnering With Serenade For The NFT Drop[23:22] Keeping Up With Web 3.0 & Music Industry [28:00] Young M.A Understands Her Place In The IndustryListen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSSHost: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.coGuests: Young M.A, @youngma, serenade.co/@youngmaTrapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by readingTrapital’s free weekly memo. Transcript________________Young M.A 00:00When it comes to business, you might not always know. You can't always say you know people. Even if you research them, no matter what the situation is, sometimes things might not work for you. You know what I mean? So you just look more to it. And you see how it goes as it goes. I mean, seeing business situations I handled in the past, some things didn't go right. Some things went right, you know, and it's just like with them. I feel good, you know? And it was like, let's go, let's see where it goes. Let's take these events and take risks. Dan Runcie 00:31Hey, welcome to the Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. Today's guest is Young M.A. You may know her for her hits like BROOKLYN (Chiraq), OOOUUU, and plenty others that helped her go six times platinum. I knew this was going to be a good interview because, the moment that I logged on to the chat, Young M.A was already in there. And her first words were "took you long enough." And that's what I knew that we're in for a good one. Young M.A came on the Trapital podcast because she just had an NF T drop for her latest single Aye Day Pay Day. And she did it as a series of stories throughout her career. And she launched her NFTs different than most artists do. As I've written and talked about on this podcast, people have looked at NFTs as a way to monetize and make a lot of money from being able to sell high-end products as collectibles. But Young M.A is going about in a different way. She only has 250 drops for each of the five NFTs in this collection. And she's only selling them for $20. That's it. So we talked about the decision, how she's approached this, and why she made the decision that she has. And I think a lot of this ties into her mentality. As an artist, Young M.A is one of the more strong proponents of being an independent artist and what that means. And we talked about how this relates to how she looks at record labels and a lot of the deals that she's turned down. And we also talked about some of Young M.A's investments too. She's invested in a bunch of different areas. So we talked about that. We also talked about some of the other trends happening in this music industry, how she keeps up with everything, how her team is structured, and a whole lot more. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Here's my chat with Young M.A. All right, today, we're joined by the one and only Young M.A, who has a big drop for us today. She is launching an NFT. And I'm excited and I want to hear more. So break it down. Why was now the time for you to make this drop happen?Young M.A 02:45I see. You know, I'm the same person. I don't, I don't talk all that extra “Aaah.” I keep it real. The big one since A1. You know what I mean? I honestly didn't know too much about it, you know what I mean? I used to see it every now and then. And I didn't understand what it was because I'm the type of person like, like, if it don't make sense to me at the moment of me seeing it, I'm just not going to pay attention. I don't see interest into things that everybody else see interesting, too, you know what I mean? So that was literally the case. But I didn't see it casually and then once my team brought it to my attention, it was like, oh, okay, I know what you're talking about, you know what I mean? Like, I've seen, so I'm guessing this is like the new way of things, new wave of things, or whatever. So focusing my attention, you know, just basically gave me the intellect of it, the background of it, detail and everything like that. Somehow, Okay, okay, no, still not understanding it too much. But you know, kind of intrigued into it. And they kind of like broke it down. So I was like, Yo, give me a little more like pinpoint, because like, I do want to understand this situation, because it'd be something that's going to be longevity, and something's that's gonna help, you know, long term future-wise. And it's like, one of the new way that's coming in, you know, why not, you know, at least, you know, check it out. So we talked more about it, had a meeting, and, and we came up with kind of like I did. So once they broke down the ideas to me of like, what's, like, the meaning of it. And also like, what I would do if I do it. And then it become a more of understanding that was like, Okay, now I can go, you know what I mean? It's not just like, like anything we ever did before. Like, it's not like, it's, like, we did but like more digital, you know what I mean? It's like what we did but digital, in a different sense. So I'm like, okay, I get it now. So once I got that understanding, there's like, I got more intrigued, and I was like, let's go. You know, I'm the type of person, like, I'd take risks. I don't believe in like, No, I gotta, I gotta be the see it to believe it type person, like, I got to see. You know, even if I got to take that risk. I had taken risk all my life, so now I was like, I want to take this risk of, a new risk of taking risk. Let's take this risk. So we got to to it on, whatever the case, got involved with a team or whatever. And we came to a point where it was like, alright, if I'm going to do this, you already know my vibe. Not going to do it on nobody else's terms and circumstances and shit like that. Like, I know how it moves. So me understanding that this is how it goes about, let's go into a route where it's going to make, make sense for me. That's always been my, my way of grinding since I came up. Anything that I've ever done always went in a sense of how I had to do, so on and, you know, still be independent, of course. So we came up with this, all my team came up with this plan of like just creating like a timeline of, like, when I first started. Literally from the ground up, like... I wouldn't say the ground up because literally I started from the ground like, like, probably like 19 years old. For like far as like when social media and stuff like that really came into play as far as music, we wanted to start from there and we started from like my first freestyling, like, went viral, BROOKLYN (Chiraq Freestyle), you know what I mean? When Facebook was like one of the hottest things ever, at the time, like Instagram was still hot. Cool. Instagram was hot but like, Facebook was one of the places where you want to go viral before you went viral on Instagram. Before... I came from them. I mean, SoundCloud, before there was SoundCloud rappers, I was on SoundCloud, you know what I mean? So like, we really wanted to bring that world into, like, just my supporters and my fan base. So it's really not too much about trying to sell this. It's more so about trying to give back to my supporters. In a way now that I understand that NF T is a way of them making money by just putting one investment into me, after like years of investment you will put into me, this is your way of making money, just like that? Come on, man. You know, I mean, like of course, I'm gonna jump into that. But of course, I still need to know more detail into it or whatever the case. So as time goes on, we come up with the details, we like, let's pinpoint the biggest times on your career. Chiraq Freestyle go viral. Boom. Years later, everybody knows, a lot of being on all these like big radio stations. Hot 97. after that and we went viral. On this... She started doing shows in Connecticut and Tri-state areas. You know what I mean? Like, I'm starting to do these type of things. Now my come up is coming up. Now OOOUUU come out, boom, because they like we need a club record. Boom, come with them. Exactly. I gotcha, you know what I mean? Like boom, OOOUUU, come out. Now that's became the biggest break now. Now, I'm crossing other into the industry. Another, you know, milestone in my career. We go from that, boom. And now we go into Petty Wap. It is a lot. So like, that's basically the timeline. Like there's so much that I did in between each time that could really count. But it's like, when you pinpoint, like, literally, like, the bowstones of everything. So like, that's what the NFT is really about, it was creating and like, like, you know, the longevity and what could create from each individual situation that you might not never know, that might develop as you go, you know what I mean? So that's what I feel like my NFT should be about. I don't know what everybody else is doing and shit about. Like, I heard about the research, I heard about, you know, people's, like, unreleased stuff. Of course, like I do unreleased music, or unreleased merch or unreleased things and shit like that. Of course, you get the exclusive. But to me, like, my NFTs, they have to, like gravitate to something close to me. It made my supporters understand that it's still me. It's not about just, yeah, having new stuff that nobody got. No, it's still connecting with you all. At the end of the day, I look at this. I don't know, I don't look at this for money. Like, I don't know, I don't know where people mine that or whatever. As humans, whatever the case, and they only be... But like me, as a artists. I always had this mindset. I treat my supporters as my family, for, like, this my way of, like, giving back. It's like me getting a platinum plaque. And seeing that I went platinum again. Like just, like it just, like I feel so good about just having that platinum plaque as another accomplishment. There's no one that I'm doing what I'm doing. So like for them to have something valuable, 250 out of millions, billions, and trillions of people in this world. You got that? Like, that's what matters to me. I don't know about that money stuff, bro. Okay, so that's what I'm trying to say.Dan Runcie 08:51Yeah. Was it tough to limit the amount because it's only 250 people for each of the drops, and you got a lot of...Young M.A 08:52Exactly. Dan Runcie 08:54...Young M.A fans out there. Was it tough to limit it?Young M.A 08:59Yeah, that's basically the case. Like, I'm still trying to figure it out. Like once it dropped and I see like how things go about, I just want to see the reaction. Like, I'm not even looking into like, like, I know the money aspects of things. And if you want to talk money, but, like, my benefit from it is more so like seeing what they value from it, you know what I mean? Like...Dan Runcie 09:20Yeah, let's talk the money piece of it first, just to get that out of the way. So you got 250 of volume. And of course, the goal is to sell out, how much are they? And are they different prices for each of the five different ones? Young M.A 09:29No, they're $20. Dan Runcie 09:31And see that's important because I think most people that do drops like this, if you only have a limited amount, they think it's going to be thousands of dollars, right? But you're like, so essentially it's like a first come first whoever gets it first, right? Young M.A 09:42Yeah, $20, $20. I feel like, you know, like my supporters. If you could buy merch, I mean my merch is more $20, oh there you go. If my merch is, like, more than $20, or you could buy a ticket to come see me, my whole package, meet and greets, all that, it should be like a bucket of change. If you can spend $20 just have an NFT of me and make money off it, like, I don't know what to say, you know, like, I'm not a... I just feel like, you know, like, we take risks, we take risks.Dan Runcie 10:08Do you feel like this was a big risk for you though? Because I feel like it's a slam dunk. I mean, you know that you got the fans that are going to want it. Young M.A 10:14Yeah, I mean, I don't look at it like a slam dunk, though. I don't know why. And that's just me being honest. I don't know why, like, I don't know, if it's just not in my heart to like, I don't really look at money value. I don't know. There's just something, I don't know. It's just something in my heart that just never been that person. Like, of course, I'm going to make money. Yes, I had to make money to survive. But my intent into going into things be more deeper than people ever think. Like, I really think deeper into things, like I have to understand. Because if I don't understand something 100%, like, what this NFT, I'm gonna keep it G. I don't know 100% about it. I do know enough. But I don't know 100%. And when I don't know, 100%+, about something. I'm not going to never put my trust into it. 100%. I'm going put my trust into how much I understand. So my trust is how much I understand per say, right? You know what I mean? And I just want to see how my supporters feel and what's gonna make them happy. If it ain't making them happy, I want to do it. And that's real, bro.Dan Runcie 11:13Oh, yeah. And I think the good thing with it, too, you have other exclusive perks lined up. If someone collects all five of them, then you invite them to certain things, and you know fans are always going to appreciate that. And I feel like this also taps into how you run your game in the industry from since you've been in this, you know, because you were always more about longevity. You were always more about the money. That is how you approach any deal that came through or you weren't trying to approach it with a bag. It wasn't about the bag, it had to be more than that.Young M.A 11:4…
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