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! Jason Bailey of Artnome.com Cryptograffiti (artist) Jessica Angel (artist) Tatiana Moroz (singer) Dan Anderson of Bitcorns Brian Hoffman of Open Bazaar Jess Houlgrave of Codex Protocol Kev & Jon from Rare Art Labs James Waugh & Trevor of Bidio Ruth Catlow of Furtherfield Sam Hart of Avant.com Poppy Simpson of Meural Grayson Cox, Ronald Gierlach, Brian Gruber & Hollis Witherspoon of Nash Cash Casino Yiying Lu (artist) Joe Chiapetta (artist) 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 Rob Myers (artist) DJ 3LAU (musician) Mack Flavelle of Cryptokitties Christian Moss of Indie Square Coin Artist of Neon District John Perkins and Jon Craine of Superrare.io Naturel (artist) 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 AOTB In The DMV Mixcloud site 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-$crilla “ ” ft. Chris DeRose, Peter Schiff Cant Smoke A Bitcoin DJ J-$crilla “ ” I Wear Gucci (My Name’s Craig Wright) MikeInSpace “ ” ft. Theo Goodman (Produced by DJ J-$crilla) Pull The Latch “ ” Worst Podcast Ever Theme Song Junseth’s World uploads Choon Music uploads Ujo Music 2018 A3C Festival in ATL Educator, Speaker and Panelist I found myself looking to educate people more as the conferences and panels in cryptoArt took off after the historic RAREAF Conference at the top of 2018. I participated in a number panels, discussions and even a teaching gig. In 2019, my goal is to continue on this path by educating, learning more and discussing in this niche and exciting space. Here’s a list. Rare Art Festival RAREAF- January 13, 2018 NYC (panelist) Digital Assets- March 31, 2018 WDC (DJ/Speaker) Introduction to Crypto-art and Crypto-music- April 21, 2018 ATL (Speaker/Educator) Rare Digital Art Charity Crypto Auction @ POW DC- May 9, 2018 WDC (Speaker/Host) Creative Tech Week- May 10, NYC (Panelist/DJ) Ethereal Summit- May 11, Brooklyn, NY (Media) Washington Area Lawyers Association Presents DJ J-$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. 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.) 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! Bitcorns KaleidoscopeXCP Bitcoin Honey Badger (prints soon) Bitcorns.com- (sold out in a day) & (some still available) CNTSMOKECORN CORNTANGCLAN - 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) SuperRare.io Proof Of Share (XCP Tokens)- and 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. CANTSMOKEBTC IWEARGUCCI - 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. dada.nyc - Cool website to monitor stats and artists using XCP Digirare.com 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 and pages. Youtube BitTube 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 . 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 here Tokenized cardboard cutout DJPEPE auctioned at RAREAF event calls DJPEPE the first blockchain performance artist Paris Review Rare Art Labs Interview Releases CANT SMOKE A BITCOIN and I WEAR GUCCI weeks ahead of release to DJPEPE token holders. DJPEPE becomes a blockchain farmer Pressed 500 stickers 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. 30 tokenized DAMN shirts Featured in The RAREST BOOK Announced Presidential Candidacy for 2020 became a thing. (Keep it coming!) Fan Art Appearance 1/5 on the HODLCAST this past year. Press Sasha Hodler - Episode , , , & 13 21 30 53 60 Bitsesh- Episode 3 Paris Review The Tatiana Show- & Interview w/ Interview With AOTB J $crilla Rare Art Labs Interview Creative Crypto Magazine 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” Steemit NewsBTC rarescrilla.com Launched RareScrilla.com _New Breaker Mag shoutout New Art On The Blockchain Epsiode 27 ft. Nanu Berks Another one! New intro too "I WEAR GUCCI…_rarescrilla.com Home page | DJ J Scrilla I am not a website developer but I do my best to keep it active! Hundreds of I’ve produced, 100s of I’ve been a part of, obviously the crypto stuff, my art and my all live on the site. I appreciate all the that link back to it- helps tremendously! songs rap videos mixtapes articles 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 . UCIT DLT P.S. There are no experts in this space.
