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- 🎤 Saweetie headlines 1st Super Bowl metaverse concert 🎤
🎤 Saweetie headlines 1st Super Bowl metaverse concert 🎤
Warner’s Rhythm City on Roblox, Hume’s Metastars now CAA artists, plus more top stories
🎵 Metaproof Music
Hey friends, this is Sophia from 🎵 Metaproof Music, the weekly newsletter where we keep you informed on how the metaverse and web3 are changing the music industry.
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💌 A quick thanks to our friends…
Our friends at Player Zero are changing the music game by being a record label for the metaverse of Animated Virtual Artists (AVAs) that create hit songs like “Deeper” by Amari. Check them out today!
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📲 By the numbers
Roblox, the popular online gaming platform that will host the NFL’s first Super Bowl metaverse concert, has reported the following numbers (Source):
Its quarter saw the fastest YoY growth in daily active users that range from 17 to 24 years old, which saw an increase of 41%.
Roblox’s daily active users that are older than 13 years old grew by 34% YoY and accounted for 54% of all daily active users.
📫 News & trends
The National Football League (NFL) is making a big push into the virtual world as it launches a virtual Super Bowl concert on multiplayer online game Roblox, featuring hip-hop artist Saweetie. Ed Kiang, the NFL’s VP of Video Gaming, described the virtual concert as “an anchor entertainment event bringing fans together in the metaverse.”
The concert was developed in partnership with metaverse game developer Gamefam and is sponsored by Intuit - the same firms that assisted the NFL in creating NFL Super Tycoon, another Roblox experience that will give players the chance to simulate the experience of being an NFL team owner.
This move into the virtual world is nothing new for the NFL, which has previously experimented with blockchain-backed endeavors such as offering NFT ticket stubs at over 100 games in partnership with TicketMaster. Roblox proves to be a sound platform for its cause with its 57.8 million daily users.
Warner Music Group has partnered with gaming and content provider Gamefam to launch Rhythm City, a new metaverse experience on Roblox, combining gaming and music to create a unique 3D experience for artists and fans. It also includes several NFT-focused initiatives, following WMG’s history of collaborations in the space that involves teaming up with digital fashion retailer DressX in 3D AR virtual clothing translated into NFTs.
Warner is looking to tap into Gamefam’s experience and presence on Roblox - boasting over 25 million daily game sessions on the gaming platform and more than 115 million hours of engagement per month - to speed up the user onboarding process for its new project. Earlier in December 2022, WMG also announced one of its biggest web3 collaborations after teaming up with LGND.io and Polygon to launch the LGND Music NFT marketplace.
Hume, an LA-based web3 music company that creates digital artists, has announced that its growing roster of metastars will be represented by the world’s leading entertainment and sports agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA), which represents some of the most iconic artists on earth including Justin Bieber, Dua Lipa, and Beyonce.
With the partnership, Hume’s metastars including Angel Baby and Clio are now officially part of CAA’s roster of groundbreaking artists. “From day 1, our goal was to create iconic virtual artists who could go on to become household names while defining a new genre in entertainment,” Hume wrote on Twitter, adding that the partnership is bringing them one step closer to that dream through the expansion of its reach and ability to grow across the entertainment space.
Lil Kim, Salt-N-Pepa, and Coi Leray join others in a three-part, celebrity-studded panel discussion series launched by Mastercard in partnership with Femme It Forward, aimed to celebrate hip-hop's 50th anniversary and honor Black women entrepreneurship. Mastercard’s other initiatives to help Black women-owned small businesses include a virtual reality experience, TikTok challenge, and a Fearless Fund grant contest.
Viewers can expect powerhouse discussions with music icons such as MC Lyte, Lil Kim, Salt-N-Pepa, and Yo-Yo, as well as emerging artists such as Jozzy, Baby Tate, and Coi Leray. Small Business City, Mastercard’s virtual reality experience in Meta Horizon Worlds, will spotlight Black women SBOs and provide networking opportunities and tools for success.
Woodstock, a legacy music and arts festival, is reinventing itself as a digital world in the metaverse. Some 69% of users believe that metaverse entertainment will play a significant role in reshaping social life, offering a new platform for brands, companies, and communities to connect on a global scale.
This connectivity is a big motivator for brands and companies to enter the metaverse, with over 90% of consumers curious about the virtual realm and the opportunities to create connections on a global scale only increasing. As the metaverse is not intended to replace physical reality but to complement it, it presents new challenges for artists, audiences, and music genres to adapt to new and evolving needs.
Actor-singer Keke Palmer is taking on a new role as the host and executive producer of the upcoming show Are We There Yet? on the Quibi platform, which explores the exciting future of music, sports, and gaming in the metaverse.
In this new series, Palmer speaks with creators, educators and experts as she delves into the impact of virtual concerts, VR in sports and immersive VR gaming on our lives. Palmer highlights how virtual concerts can bring music experiences to more people, how VR can break accessibility barriers in sports, and how immersive VR gaming can create new social connections, to name a few key trends, issues, and movements in the space.
Styngr, a B2B technology platform that provides a turnkey music licensing solution for video games and the metaverse, has announced its partnership with Merlin, a digital rights music licensing partner for independent record labels, distributors, and other music rights holders around the world. Alex Tarrand, COO at Styngr, said they will be serving their members' independent repertoire within games, “deepening the breadth of music gamers can expect to hear in the metaverse."
Styngr allows gamers to tailor-fit their in-game music experience through its library of millions of fully-licensed music tracks and beats. Its offerings includes “Styngs,” short music clips that users can buy, and gamer-friendly radio stations that can be curated by artists, influencers, and development teams.
Cyanite has launched a search engine that seeks to take the guesswork out of finding the perfect track. Its Free Text Search allows users to input complex text phrases and translates it into its closest musical equivalent, which means users can find matching music with their own language and get rid of the frustration of sifting through irrelevant tracks.
The technology is poised to benefit not only individual users, but also music companies looking to access a wider range of potential music buyers. Free Text Search may be used to select music for a wealth of scenarios, from library music, gaming, film, sonic branding and advertising, to new developments in areas such as the metaverse.
South by Southwest (SXSW), a yearly event for parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences happening in mid-March in Austin, Texas, has revealed the second half of its lineup for this year’s edition set for March 10-19. Part of this lineup is XR Experience, projects presented in its XR Experience Competition, XR Experience Spotlight, and XR Experience Special Event sections that emphasize storytelling, ingenuity, and immersive arts and how they are redefining how we experience the world around us.
A taste of this immersive experience is the Metaverse Music Concert - directed by YOOM and Active Theory - as an interactive, volumetric music concert in a special metaverse space inspired by the famous 6th Street in Austin.
Web3 music buzzes with excitement with new concert series such as one from smart contracts platform Avalanche Park and pioneering web3 musician Ed Balloon, aimed at building culture and representation within the web3 community. The free-for-all first event in the lineup - curated by Balloon and featuring JPEGMAFIA, Clipping, Witch Prophet, and more - will also offer attendees an Avalanche Park NFT to unlock additional fan perks and rewards.
Balloon said he started the movement after finding a lack of diverse representation in the web3 space, thus paving the way for newer, up-and-coming artists to explore and display their unfiltered creativity before eager fans looking for immersive IRL experiences.
South Korean entertainment giant SM Entertainment is making a major change in its 28-year history by introducing a multi-label system for the first time. In this bid to remove its dependence on founder Lee Soo-man as chief music producer and expand its portfolio by introducing new groups and singers, SM Entertainment is set to diversify its artist lineup, promote new talents in various music genres, as well as debut three new K-pop groups and a virtual singer in 2023.
In addition, SM Entertainment is also investing more in expanding its portfolio and exploring new technologies such as the metaverse, acquiring music companies of different genres to further solidify its position as a leading industry player.
Yuné pinku is a 19-year-old London-based bedroom producer who has created a brand of electronic music unlike any other. With a sound that blends techno and garage, Yuné's music features adventurous synth bursts and cleverly-layered vocals. Despite her young age, Yuné has already made a name for herself in the electronic music scene.
Yet she found her love for the genre not through the club scene, but through solitary experimentation: Her music explores themes of femininity in virtual spaces and the vulnerability of AI, adding a unique and introspective dimension to the electronic genre. Yuné and other female producers in the electronic music scene, still largely a "bro-ish" world, proves to be a welcome development.
💸 Finance buzz
At Sony Group, CFO Hiroki Totoki is set to take over as president while current president Kenichiro Poshida will remain chairman and CEO - the two running the conglomerate in the age of the metaverse and electric cars. (Source)
Picardy Protocol, a Web3 protocol built to enable music artists and creators to raise funds and grow their communities, has integrated Chainlink Automation on Polygon to secure and streamline its royalty payout process. Chainlink is the industry standard for building, accessing, and selling oracle services needed to power hybrid smart contracts on any blockchain. (Source)
Web3 music platform Nina Protocol just ventured into podcasting via 400 FLOOR, which is available on major podcast hosting services including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Stitcher. (Source)
🗣️ Quote of the week
“Everyone is laughing right now at web3/blockchain but I’m long-term bullish on the idea of a cross-platform fan club system that can drive meaningful new revenue for artists. Imagine Amex points for music that can help drive more revenue and engagement across the entire ecosystem.”
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All content on this newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not aim to serve as or replace expert investment advice.
If you are a startup building in the metaverse / web3 ecosystem and are raising capital, please reach out to Sfermion. Sfermion is an investment firm focused on accelerating the emergence of the metaverse.
Stay informed via our Twitter and Subscribe here to get your metaverse music news every Tuesday.