2020 Recap - Indieblock Records
Article by Kevin Damken
Lee este articulo en Español aquí
Hello everyone! It’s the end of the year, and I´m so grateful for everything that has happened throughout it.
At the beginning of the year, Nelson and I began Indieblock Records with the simple idea of helping onboard new artists onto Emanate. We believed that we could help build a fairer and more transparent music industry by leveraging newly built Emanate’s tools. Simultaneously, our objective was to seamlessly get more people into the crypto/blockchain world through music.
Of course, the road has not been easy, but it’s been immensely satisfying, and although we did not reach our internal goals, we’ve been successful in moving the needle forward one step at a time.
Here is a quick recap of what we have achieved in the last year:
1. INDIEBLOCK RECORDS FEAT. VENEZUELA 2020
Feat. was the first song creation contest organized by Indieblock Records to benefit FamilyTelos — a basic income experiment in Venezuela.
How did it work?
Thanks to the partnerships, we fundraised approximately USD 700 worth of cryptocurrency, which were distributed among the first three places of our contest. The contestants had to create a song of any genre with the central theme: “Venezuela its current situation or possible solutions.
The winning songs were then distributed to Emanate, and the largest percentage of the royalties distributed transparently to FamilyTelos.
Listen to the winners on Emanate:
- Aquí Estoy by Alda Music - Link
- Querramos a Venezuela by Rodnell Matos - Link
- Alma Llanera by Samix Rusher (TAKEN DOWN DUE TO COPYRIGHT VIOLATIONS)
2. 70+ ARTIST ONBOARDED TO EMANATE
As I wrote at the beginning, we started with the simple idea of distributing artists’ music catalog onto Emanate, and over the last year, we’ve helped more than 70+ artists to do so. Special shoutout to Leonardo Guedez (Mango Són), Leonela Guedez (Leonela), and Dany Figueredo (Inmigrantes Band) for their effort and hard work of helping onboard many of these artists.
Here is a list of a few of them:
You can find our full catalog here
3. INDIEBLOCK PRODUCTION NODES
After seeing product-market-fit by artists wanting their catalog distributed onto a fair and transparent ecosystem powered by blockchain, we decided to take another step forward. We delved into the idea of building an international community of artists, music producers, and labels open to collaborating in the music production process of a song.
The idea was to gather the specialized skills in music production of our community, tie them together with a new project/song to be created, and fairly compensate everyone involved in the process via smart contract payment splits. We defined the community members who joined this initiative as an Indieblock Production Node.
We were happy to see that we had many members that joined Indieblock Production Nodes. Furthermore, we are delighted that through our collaboration agreements, together we have produced 3 full quality songs. This may not sound as much, but we are proud of everyone involved in the process. It required constant and effective communication, and that is no easy task.
Shoutout to our current Indieblock Production Nodes:
Tapirama Inc
Marcos Viloria Jr
CEU Records
RS Producciones
Eliel Kenobi
Gianpiero León Palma
Listen to the songs produced by the Indieblock Production Nodes:
4. INDEPENDENT ALLIED RECORD LABELS INITIATIVE
Our mission is to help create change in the music industry and the world by using the new tools blockchain technology brings, and we knew that we couldn’t do it alone. This is why we began the Independent Allied Record Labels initiative.
This alliance was born while collaborating with CirculoDub Comunity Sello with the idea of providing record labels within the partnership the technical knowledge and support on how to use blockchain and crypto for their own catalog.
We believe in a future where no one is left behind, and the more we educate others on this world-shifting technology, the more we will grow.
Shoutout to current labels inside the alliance:
CirculoDub Community Sello
CEU Records
5. INDIEBLOCK COMMUNITY GROWTH & ENGAGEMENT
Throughout the year, we have slowly built a community of 100+ engaged Emanate power users. These are people who understand Indieblock Records’ proposition of being part of a music ecosystem that fairly and instantly compensates our favorite artists for their creativity as well as music lovers for their passion and dedication to music.
We’ve done this through different engagement activities like our Karaoke Live or the Best Rhyme. We also can’t go without mentioning the song of the day, where every day, a member of our community can share one of their favorite songs on Emanate and earn a little bit of EMT from us in the process.
Big shoutout to our vibrant community in Telegram and to our group of moderators helping us manage the community:
Airam Herrera
Edgar Guedez
Eduardo Figueredo
Amanda Milagros
WHAT’S NEXT?
This was a year of experimentation and learning, and we’ve definitely learned a lot, and after doing what we’ve done, we ask ourselves. What’s next? If this was year 0 for Indieblock Records, the coming year is the beginning of the new decade, and it will definitely be an exciting one filled with new opportunities.
These are some of the things you can expect from us in the coming quarters:
- Artist Development Program
- NFT Collection Drops
- New PR Collaborations
- Large Event Productions
- Big Name Artists Onboarding
Stay tuned for more information on this.
I want to leave off by thanking everyone who was part of making this year possible. We look forward to a bright future. I and everyone in the Indieblock team wish you a happy new year!
