I decided to focus full-time in this space towards the end of 2017. Seems like a decade ago now.
I think it’s important to note that as an independent creative, I have the luxury to speak freely and I don’t have to tailor my thoughts to appease a venture capital investor or boss. I’m a Bitcoiner. I play with Ethereum too, but mainly because that’s where much of the cryptoArt experimentation has moved to over the past year but I would love to help some more Bitcoin-specific art/music projects get on their feet as well. (I’ve also fiddled with Waves, EOS and Tron but not enough to incorporate their protocols into my work yet.)
So, I’ve recapped my contributions and content last year and hope to expand and continue learning more in 2019.
Art On The Blockchain Podcast (AOTB)
AOTB is the crypto-art and music education- focused podcast brought to you by Cynthia Gayton and myself. They are generally 60–120 minutes long and I produce and edit each episode with all of my own original music and try to keep it in line with the feel from my DJ mixtapes. Hopefully, they come across totally different than what you are used to. Episodes 9–26 were all recorded in 2018. That’s an average of 1.5 podcasts per month of conversations with some of the vanguards of the cryptoArt space. A big bump from our 8 episodes in 2017!
Jess Houlgrave of Codex Protocol
Grayson Cox, Ronald Gierlach, Brian Gruber & Hollis Witherspoon of Nash Cash Casino
Manuel Palou, Moises Sanabria & Eddie Negron of Art404
Travis LeRoy Southworth (artist)
Beatriz Ramos and Yehudit Mam of Dada.NYC
Matt Hall of Choon Music and Cryptopunks
Mack Flavelle of Cryptokitties
Christian Moss of Indie Square
John Perkins and Jon Craine of Superrare.io
On top of these long form episodes we also briefly branched out to FM radio with a bi-weekly 30 minute live radio show on WERA in Arlington, Virginia. For this show we focused on news and on local DC-area artists involved in cryptoArt. We had short interviews with artists like Vesa, Coldie and more. Although the show was a lot of fun to to do, we decided to discontinue it as it was hard to gauge how much it was being listened to and we could only repost to the archaic MixCloud website. Sometimes it’s hard being located in the cryptoArt-sparse Washington DC! lol
Crypto-related Music
I spent many years making rap music and somehow fell into audio visual memes this year. Here’s a sampling of some of the releases.
DJ J-$crilla “Cant Smoke A Bitcoin” ft. Chris DeRose, Peter Schiff
DJ J-$crilla “I Wear Gucci (My Name’s Craig Wright)”
MikeInSpace “Pull The Latch” ft. Theo Goodman (Produced by DJ J-$crilla)
“Junseth’s World” Worst Podcast Ever Theme Song
Choon Music uploads
Ujo Music uploads
2018 A3C Festival in ATL
Educator, Speaker and Panelist
I found myself looking to educate people more as the conferences and panels in cryptoArt took off after the historic RAREAF Conference at the top of 2018. I participated in a number panels, discussions and even a teaching gig. In 2019, my goal is to continue on this path by educating, learning more and discussing in this niche and exciting space. Here’s a list.
Rare Art Festival RAREAF- January 13, 2018 NYC (panelist)
Digital Assets- March 31, 2018 WDC (DJ/Speaker)
Introduction to Crypto-art and Crypto-music- April 21, 2018 ATL (Speaker/Educator)
Rare Digital Art Charity Crypto Auction @ POW DC- May 9, 2018 WDC (Speaker/Host)
Creative Tech Week- May 10, NYC (Panelist/DJ)
Ethereal Summit- May 11, Brooklyn, NY (Media)
Washington Area Lawyers Association Presents DJ J-$crilla & Cynthia Gayton’s “Intro To Cryptocurrencies, CryptoArt and Music, and Blockchain for Creatives”- Sept 17- Oct 2 (Every Monday 7-9pm) WDC (Educator/Presenter)
A3C Festival- “How Musicians and Artists Are Using Blockchain” Oct 5, 2018 ATL (Panelist/Speaker)
The Rarest Show- Oct 25, 2018 Brooklyn, NY (DJ/Media)
Art Decentralized- The World of Distributed Masterpieces- Dec 6, 2018 MIA (Media)
a clip from Introduction To CryptoArt & CryptoMusic
Writings
I’ve always enjoyed writing and have a lofty goal of one day cooking up a novel. I started writing on cryptoArt in 2016 and I added a few more pieces in 2018 to the catalogue. Writing more will be near the top of the list of 2019.
Introduction To CryptoArt & CryptoMusic
Some NOTES on How To Start Earning Crypto With Music
DON’T GO DOWN THAT RABBIT HOLE, SCRILLA
“Bitcoin Honey Badger” Acrylic on canvas
Crypto- Themed Artwork and Tokenized pieces
In 2016/2017 I made a bunch of Counterparty (XCP/BTC) related artwork in the form of Rare Pepes. I made mostly hip-hop and Crypto-themed Pepes. As some in this space know now, I have an opinion- that the Rare Pepe Trading Group ignited this space faster than anything else. In 2018, as cryptoArt exploded, the Ethereum communities got behind the movement and hundreds of platforms seemed to pop up as you can witness in real time at dappradar.com. The Ethereum community is big on NFTs, (I personally dislike the name “NFT” to describe these collectibles but this article is not about that) crypto-collectibles and hackathons. I began experimenting with a few of these platforms but ultimately ended up mostly issuing my Ethereum-based art tokens through SuperRare. I really hope to try out Rare Art Labs more this year as well. I also continued using my go-to Counterparty platform to issue tokens using the Bitcoin blockchain.
Bitcorns sprung up around the beginning of February and I’ve really enjoyed that community. Even met my fiancee through the community (Tinder is for boomers.) KaleidoscopeXCP is one of the most innovative dark corners of the blockchain space and I really enjoy what goes on there. They basically use cryptoArt to break stuff or make you think. I also issued my own, and what I believe to be the first of it’s kind- Proof Of Work tokens to help facilitate my music- meme marketing for “Can’t Smoke A Bitcoin” and “I Wear Gucci.” This tokenizing experiment is certainly an interesting rabbit hole and I look to dive deeper this year!
Bitcoin Honey Badger (prints soon)
Bitcorns.com- CNTSMOKECORN (sold out in a day) & CORNTANGCLAN (some still available)
SuperRare.io- I WEAR GUCCI (sold 1/1), CANT SMOKE A BITCOIN (sold 4/5), FACES (sold 1/1), CLOCKWORK GREEN (sold 1/1), MUH BAGS (unsold 1/1)
Proof Of Share (XCP Tokens)- CANTSMOKEBTC and IWEARGUCCI One-of-a-kind tokens that were both airdropped to wallet holders that provably helped promote the release through twitter. They are basically game-ified swag badges using Bitcoin.
dada.nyc- I really like digitally finger-painting on this unique social media artist site, although I have yet to tokenize any of the pieces on there.
Digirare.com- Cool website to monitor stats and artists using XCP
Instructional Videos from rarescrilla.com
Instructional/Education Videos
I am definitely looking to expand more in the video side of things in 2019. Subscribe to my Youtube and BitTube pages.
Art On The Blockchain Presents IPFS BATTLE ROYALE
Art On The Blockchain Presents BATTLE ROYALE 2: Ethereum vs. Counterparty
Blockchain: The Technology That’s Changing The Music Industry Pt. 1 Live at A3C
How To Buy A Rare Pepe Using Bitcoin
Clip from the “DJPEPE in 60 Seconds” video
DJPEPE
Maybe the hardest thing to explain to my friends and family is that I am a manager of a Bitcoin frog meme. It all started in 2016- Watch the 60 second video I produced in 2017 here. It escalated quickly on January 13, 2018 as I somehow conjured up a 6 foot cardboard cutout to speak on a panel with industry professionals. Love him or hate him, here are some DJPEPE highlights from last year. #memetoo #UCIT
Tokenized cardboard cutout DJPEPE auctioned at RAREAF event
Paris Review calls DJPEPE the first blockchain performance artist
Releases CANT SMOKE A BITCOIN and I WEAR GUCCI weeks ahead of release to DJPEPE token holders.
DJPEPE becomes a blockchain farmer
30 tokenized DAMN shirts released to the wild. So rare that if you wash it you will destroy it. In fact, you have to pass interview questions in order to even be considered to purchase one.
Announced Presidential Candidacy for 2020
Fan Art became a thing. (Keep it coming!)
Appearance 1/5 on the HODLCAST this past year.
Press
Sasha Hodler - Episode 13, 21, 30, 53 & 60
Bitsesh- Episode 3
The Tatiana Show- Interview With AOTB & Interview w/ J $crilla
Bitsonline- Artist DJ J $crilla Is Using Tokens to Promote a Music Video & Rare Art Festival Canceled Following Crypto Market Crash
“Funding Creative Projects with Non-Fungible Tokens”
rarescrilla.com
Launched RareScrilla.com
Home page | DJ J Scrilla_New Breaker Mag shoutout New Art On The Blockchain Epsiode 27 ft. Nanu Berks Another one! New intro too "I WEAR GUCCI…_rarescrilla.com
I am not a website developer but I do my best to keep it active! Hundreds of songs I’ve produced, 100s of rap videos I’ve been a part of, obviously the crypto stuff, my art and my mixtapes all live on the site. I appreciate all the articles that link back to it- helps tremendously!
Conclusion
I will continue down the rabbit hole I entered in 2014. Bear markets are where the innovation happens and I’m all aboard this DLT. UCIT
P.S. There are no experts in this space.