Violetta Zironi talks about inscribing her song No Ordinary Kind directly onto the Bitcoin blockchain, why she did it, what it means to truly own music digitally, and how this intersects with her songwriting. She explains the technical process behind compressing a song to fit a Bitcoin block, and why she sees NFTs as a way to reclaim control over distribution, audience connection, and creative direction.

Violetta Zironi is an Italian singer-songwriter and actress, living in Nashville, who first gained recognition in 2013 as a finalist on X Factor Italy. After several years as a major label artist, touring internationally and releasing studio projects, she transitioned into the Web3 space, where she's become a leading voice in music NFTs. Since 2022, she’s sold over 10,000 NFTs and generated millions in revenue directly from her fans. She also made history by inscribing a one-of-a-kind song onto the Bitcoin blockchain as an Ordinal. 

In this episode I talk with Violetta Zironi, who is an Italian singer-songwriter living

in Nashville, who first gained recognition in 2013 as a finalist on X-Factor Italy.

After several years as a major label artist touring internationally and releasing studio

projects she transitioned into the web3 space where she became a leading voice in music

NFTs.

Since 2022 she sold over 10 000 NFTs and generated millions in revenue directly from her fans.

She also made history by inscribing a one-of-a-kind song onto the Bitcoin blockchain as an ordinal.

Before we dive into this episode I want to give you a quick rundown of a few terms Violetta

uses, just in case you're unfamiliar or could use a quick refresher.

I'll explain what we mean by the terms blockchain, NFT, web3 and ordinals.

Feel free to skip ahead if you're already fluent and want to get straight to the conversation.

Blockchain Think of a blockchain as a public digital

notebook that's copied and shared across thousands of computers.

Every time something happens, like a transaction or someone uploading a file, it gets written

into this notebook.

And once it's written you can't erase it.

That's what makes it secure and trustworthy.

No single person or company controls it and everyone can verify what's inside.

On-chain Now when we say something is on-chain we mean

the actual data, like a song, a piece of art or some code is stored directly inside the

blockchain.

That's different from most cases where you just store a link to the file elsewhere.

Putting it on-chain makes it permanent, tamper-proof and resistant to censorship.

But it's also expensive and technically limited.

Blockchains aren't built for big files so it's usually reserved for things that are

meant to last.

NFT or Non-Fungible Token is basically a digital proof of ownership.

It's like a receipt or a certificate that says you own this specific digital item.

It could point to a song, a video, an artwork or anything really.

What makes it powerful is that it's recorded on the blockchain so anyone can verify its

authenticity and they can verify who owns it and when it changed hands.

Unlike an mp3 you can copy a million times, an NFT is unique and it's that uniqueness

that gives it value.

Web3 is the bigger picture.

It's a vision for the next version of the internet.

One where users own their data, creators keep more control and platforms are decentralized.

Instead of companies like Meta or Google owning everything you interact through protocols

that run on blockchains.

It's still early and a bit messy but the core idea is about shifting power away from platforms

and back to people.

Ordinal

An ordinal is a way to make one tiny piece of bitcoin, called a satoshi, unique.

Normally all satoshis are identical like drops of water but with the ordinal's protocol you

can give a satoshi its own identity by assigning it a number based on when it was mined.

Once a satoshi is identified you can inscribe data directly onto it, like a song, an image

or a piece of writing.

That turns it into a kind of bitcoin native NFT.

The actual content gets stored on chain inside bitcoin's ledger, not just linked from somewhere

else.

What makes ordinals powerful is that they don't need a separate token or smart contract.

They work entirely within bitcoin.

That means the song, art or message you inscribe is permanent, verifiable and impossible to

change as long as the bitcoin network exists.

It's like carving your art into the stone walls of the bitcoin cathedral.

It's there, forever, no edits, no erasing, no middleman.

And now, on to the episode.

Welcome to the podcast Artificial Art.

My name is Steinar Jeffs.

I'm a musician and a music teacher and in this podcast I'll be interviewing guests about

technology and creativity.

Hi Violetta.

Good morning to you.

It's morning for you and it's afternoon for me now actually.

I'll just jump straight into it.

So you've made a song called "No Ordinary Kind" which is permanently inscribed on the

bitcoin blockchain.

It has been sold for one bitcoin which is roughly $84,000 per today's value I think.

And what does it mean to have a song on chain and what made you do it?

Yeah, well thank you for bringing that up.

The value of bitcoin obviously is very volatile which is a fun roller coaster to be on but

also not always the easiest one.

At the time of my sale, bitcoin was worth $60,000 so that's sort of how I determined

the value of that sale.

I usually say it was $60,000.

What does it mean to have a song on chain?

It means different things for different blockchains I guess.

Regarding bitcoin, when you have a song on chain on bitcoin, actually scrap that.

On chain is not what people normally do when they create NFTs.

Let me put it that way.

Like an NFT, the art that you see on an NFT is not on chain necessarily unless it says

specifically on chain.

My song was on chain because it's inscribed inside basically a bitcoin transaction, a

bitcoin block, one of the blocks that are being mined.

You practically connect some data to a specific transaction, to a specific satoshi and you

link that data that lives inside the block to a specific satoshi.

So even if I wanted to delete it, I couldn't and it's sort of now part of the data that

bitcoin holds and that all the node runners can verify.

What's the difference between that concept and a regular NFT?

A regular NFT is a token pretty much that you can hard code.

So if you're a developer, you can create a token out of nowhere called ERC-721.

So there's various one.

But the actual data, whether it's a song or a piece of art or a photograph is not necessarily

stored on the blockchain, but it's on a decentralized storage system like IPFS, which could be something

like Dropbox, but decentralized that it doesn't belong to like a corporation, right?

Like Dropbox or Amazon.

But it's pretty much you put it on decentralized storage and then you link that piece of media

to the token that you've coded on the blockchain.

What made you put a song on chain or go into the NFT concept in general?

Yeah, so I've done both, you know, I've done both and I think both are fine and both are

things that have their use cases and it really depends what you're trying to do.

I'm really not hardcore, you know, maxi on having things fully on chain or I'm not a

maxi for any blockchain.

I'm a maxi for using a blockchain when it makes sense for the specific project that

you want to do.

So for the past three years, I've been doing NFTs.

I've, you know, created over 10,000 NFTs with my music and they are on Ethereum and then

the media, the music and the visuals are stored in IPFS and linked to the blockchain and that

is just, you know, it's a cheaper way to do it for sure.

You can afford to do many, many more and therefore build a community, right?

Because you have many, many more assets that you can propagate.

But when it came to that specific song, my song, No Ordinary Kind, I thought it was very

important for it to be on chain because it was marking a special moment, you know, that

I just wanted to memorialize and just have there forever.

It's just, in my opinion, choosing the blockchain and choosing the medium and the tools and

the strategy is just an extension of the art that you're creating.

So if a song requires to be forever available there, then put it on chain.

If the other album is maybe more about building community and about versatility, then it's

okay for it not to be on chain.

Right.

Let's take a step back and talk about you as an artist, when you release your music,

you have different options.

You could release it to streaming services or you could print vinyl or CDs or oral transmitted,

I guess.

Would you generally choose NFTs or on blockchain?

How come?

Why do you do that?

Why would an artist want to release their music on chain and why would an audience want

to listen to music that's on chain?

Right.

So yeah, it's a really good question.

But I think once a really simple concept gets understood, you know, people will really realize

why there are substantial benefits in doing this.

So the reason number one is because I was, before I started creating NFTs, I was just

releasing music in a traditional way through Spotify and different streaming platforms.

And surprise, surprise, that wasn't making me any money whatsoever.

Like zero, you know what I mean?

And I had, you know, millions of streams and hundreds of thousands of listeners.

And still, that was not something that was making me a living.

And I didn't even get to have information and data on my listeners as much as I would

want to, right?

No real direct contact with them.

And so one thing that NFTs allow you to do is simply sell your music digitally to your

listeners directly, right?

Without having to go to a third party platform.

And so you make the rules of your business.

You decide your price, and it can be as high as whatever you want, and as low as whatever

you want.

You can decide the supply of your NFTs, of your music, you want to make a limited edition

10,000 records, that's it, right?

And then they're going to be really rare.

And you're selling directly to people and you can choose to ask them for their contact

information and then create a community that's independent of all the other platforms.

So in case Spotify goes bankrupt, and I really hope they do, eventually at some point, you

know, you will be independent of that and you'll be running your own show like you should

as an artist.

Yeah.

So then you get a bit more control or a lot more control and the supply is kind of finite

or you could define it for yourself, as you said.

So I guess it's kind of a way back to something resembling a physical item.

Exactly.

Yeah.

But when I talk to people about NFTs and the concept of a physical object in the digital

world, people tend to get really confused and they don't understand why.

I mean, if you have a MP3 or a WAV file on your computer and you inscribe that or make

it into an NFT, what makes that version unique or special as compared to just a file you

could download, why not just use Bandcamp or some site like that instead?

Yeah, there's two reasons.

First of all, Bandcamp could go away, right?

And if Bandcamp goes away, what are you going to do?

You know what I mean?

Like you're still depending on someone else to provide the infrastructure for you to run

your business, which is risky.

No real entrepreneur would ever do that.

No real entrepreneur would just sell their stuff on Amazon.

You know what I mean?

They will have other ways to sell, diversify, you know, like with everything else.

If you're a really successful entrepreneur, you would build something like Amazon for

yourself, so you don't have to split the pie with other people.

So that's one reason.

And the second reason is more like the philosophical thing.

And it's funny that people don't seem to grasp that fundamental meaning of ownership.

We live in a digital era, we're seeing it every day.

In the last couple of years, the world has sped up so much with technology.

Like think of AI, you know, that now it feels like how did we ever survive without it?

You know what I mean?

And so we live in a digital era and in a digital era, owning things digitally makes sense,

just like you own them physically.

People are digital nomads now, they travel the world, the world goes so fast, that you

simply don't have the capacity in your life, the space, and just the room, like physical

space to own physical things anymore.

Everything is digital, it's just not practical anymore to own physical things.

But people never understood that when something is online, digital, you weren't really owning

it, you were only viewing it, it was only sort of there for you to see it or borrow

it, or stream it, unlock it.

But through the blockchain, you can actually own things digitally online, because they

are independent of every server that allows you to view them, see them, you know what

I mean, they will exist anyway.

And so in a world that's increasingly digital, just the same as we have our money, our money

is digital in bank accounts, do we have, do we see that cash?

No, you know what I mean?

It's in the bank account, and the bank is probably using your money to, you know, to

loan it to somebody else, you know what I mean?

And so with NFTs and the blockchain, you can actually own something digitally.

And I think it's really as simple as that.

And so if any of the factors that determine you owning that thing go away, you still own

it, because you really do, you really own it.

So it's the fact that it doesn't go away, even though the company distributing it could

go bankrupt, and it will still be there.

That's right.

But it's still dependent on electricity and infrastructure and stuff like that, though.

Yeah, if all power went out, you would lose it anyway.

Correct.

Like from a solar storm or something.

I mean, if the power went out, you would lose everything pretty much.

Yeah.

Don't you think?

But not vinyl, though.

Not vinyl, but you would lose things that are far more important than vinyl records,

you know what I mean?

You would lose your all your digital stuff, identity, bank accounts, like documents, everything

you would lose, and the world would pretty much, it would be an apocalypse, I think.

Yeah, for sure.

If we didn't have any more electricity.

Definitely.

So I mean, yeah, it was a good explanation, I think, the part of actually owning something.

And the next bit you were talking about that in the digital world, it's not practical to

have a physical object anymore, at least for a lot of people.

Of course, still a lot of people enjoy collecting vinyl and having crates of it or an entire

wall with vinyl.

And you know, they're not exclusive, they're not mutually exclusive.

Like I only do NFTs and vinyl.

So only do collectibles, whether they're physical or digital.

What I don't like is the non ownership of streaming.

Because both vinyl and NFTs are both ownable in different ways, physically and digitally.

But when you stream, you're really just paying for nothing.

And the person that should be getting paid is not.

Even when you buy a movie, like on Amazon, what are you actually buying?

Like you pay $25, you know, to see the latest movie from the Oscars, and then you see it

once, and then do you actually own it?

If Amazon were to go down?

That's not a DVD, you know what I mean?

It's just like, you're paying more to stream it, basically.

How do you actually inscribe your music on chain?

How do you do it practically?

Practically, there are some challenges when it comes to inscribing music on Bitcoin, because

the data space that each block can host is very limited.

It's four megabytes per block.

So four megabytes is tiny, if you think about it, like a whole song is going to be a lot

more than four megabytes, right?

So the first challenge is, can you compress a song to four megabytes?

It is really expensive as well to inscribe a song and occupy a whole block, because you

have to basically pay a miner to reserve that block for you, which is, you know, a lot.

Depending on the traffic on the blockchain, it can be more or less expensive.

So what I did was I wanted to inscribe by myself, I didn't want to work with a miner.

And so I had to basically the max size of the transaction that you can make when you're

inscribing without working with the miners 400 kilobytes.

So my biggest challenge was to compress a song with a visual down to 400 kilobytes,

which is miniscule for people that maybe don't know, it's like, so small, you know, nothing

is ever that small, unless it's like code, you know what I mean?

When it's an mp4, it's going to be really hard.

But thankfully, for the kind of music that I make, like my genre, I was able to do it

preserving the sound that I was going for.

So that's that was the first challenge.

And then there are tools that you can use where you can basically drag and drop, pretty

much drag and drop your content and then pick the piece of Bitcoin then you want to inscribe

on and pay the fee and then and then go ahead and do it.

They're pretty developed with the tools now to make it no code, you know, very user friendly.

So yeah, so you have to accept that you get kind of low quality resolution on your music

then.

I think it's not about accepting it.

It's rather a feature than a bug.

You know, you you you're you are aware of that the moment that you decide to inscribe.

And so that's part of the reason why I did it.

You know, what I wanted to do was here for the first time, I am freeing myself of all

the industry's pre requirements or expectations of having, you know, a certain level of production,

you know, a certain, you know, level of being polished, you know, polished song and this

and then the other and all that fluff a lot of times is covering up for a bad song, you

know what I mean?

And and for me, it's like, I don't care about any of those other elements, because my most

the strength that I want to portray the most about me as an artist is my songwriting.

And whether it's 400 kilobytes or 100 megabytes, that's not going to change, you know, so it

was actually very liberating to be able to embrace the lo-fi ness of Bitcoin to highlight

what really matters to me, which is the songwriting.

Okay.

But in the other instances of music you've released afterwards, you've used other techniques,

right?

So maybe it doesn't require you to compress as much.

Right?

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

It really always depends on the song depends on what your message is, you know, I've really

come to the conclusion that all these tools that are available are only an extension of

the artistic message you want to put out, you know, and you really have a lot of choice

to use different mediums as a canvas for your art.

Right.

And with Bitcoin, you know, it's really cool because you can actually go back in time and

pick the like unit of Bitcoin that you want your art to be on based on the date or a specific

property.

So I was able to find a piece of Bitcoin that was created 12 years ago, the day my career

started, you know, and I was able to put my song on that.

So it really does become like part of your art.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, that's poetic.

So then you inscribed that song, very lo-fi, and you had an auction where the highest bidder

bought this unique version of the song, I guess you could say.

Could you tell us about the auction process?

Was it like a lot of bidders or one crazy guy giving a lot of...

There was a few.

No, there was a few bidders that were bidding over a couple of days.

There was definitely a jump, you know, from like lower bids to really high bids.

The person who bought it really wanted it, you know, so they just made sure the competition

was annihilated, which is what you want, I guess.

They really made sure the competition couldn't compete.

So that's sort of what happened.

Do you know why that person was willing to pay that much?

Yeah, they actually wanted to use the song for a project of theirs that was connected.

So yeah, they had a reason.

That's the thing with music, you know, I choose to offer my collectors the ability to utilize

the song for what they want to do.

Let's say they have a podcast, right, or they have their own artistic project that they

would like to connect the song to.

Why not?

You know, if you bought it, you can use it.

Not directly monetize it, so it's not like they can put it on Spotify and like, you know,

or make vinyl or sell other NFTs from it.

But if they want to integrate it in their thing, yes, absolutely.

So I think, you know, they wanted to do that.

And apparently your music has been traded for two and a half million dollars or something

like that.

Yeah.

And do you get a cut when your music gets traded?

Yes, yes.

Most of the times, yes.

It does kind of depend on the seller.

But for the first year and a half, yes, I was getting 10% because that's what I decided.

But then exactly an example of centralization, even when it comes to NFTs and why it's important

not to rely on secondary marketplaces that sort of act as a platform for you.

The biggest NFT trading platform, which was OpenSea at the time, decided to change the

rules and stop enforcing royalties that creators had set for themselves.

And then all of a sudden, you know, the decision that I had made of taking 10% of every resale,

that was optional all of a sudden because of a decision made by the marketplace, not

me.

And that's when I decided to build my own marketplace and direct people to my website

directly to trade.

So yeah.

Right.

Okay.

I've heard some artists use NFTs in a way where they give the buyers a bit of the master

rights so that the audience also has an incentive to market the music, I guess.

Have you tried something like that?

No, I haven't done it yet.

But I think it's a really good idea.

You know, I really do think it's smart, you know, to empower your community to be your

biggest marketing force.

You know what I mean?

Because they're directly invested, they have a direct potential return, and also they want

to support you because they're your fans.

So all that combined, I think is a winning combination for sure.

I haven't done it because I didn't put my songs out on like platforms or streams that

the master would, you know, have any like return on.

But if I ever were to do that, yeah, I think I would do it that way.

In terms of NFTs kind of resembling the physical world in a way and attracting collectors and

stuff like that.

There's always been this tension between art and value.

And if you think about like a billionaire locking away paintings in a climate controlled

vault, treating them like stock portfolios, the NFT market could mirror this dynamic,

like limited supply, high demand, speculative value.

And do you ever worry that by embracing scarcity and collectability, we're just recreating

the same system that made art inaccessible and commodified in the first place?

I mean, how do you reconcile the desire to give music value with the risk of it becoming

a luxury asset for the few?

See, I believe music should be a luxury asset for the few.

So for me, that's great.

You know what I mean?

Like, that's what I want.

Because music has been devalued too much.

And it's inflated.

You know what I mean?

Like, there's way too much music.

It's out of control.

We don't know what's AI music, what's not AI music.

We don't know how these platforms are literally controlling the monopoly for music.

So I'd much rather music be commodified by people than by corporations, like Spotify

or Apple, because they have more power than the individuals.

Whereas I believe the free market should be there for music, and it should be in the hands

of the actual consumers, the actual recipients of the art in the first place.

And I don't necessarily think that all music should be a luxury asset for the few.

I think music should have the freedom to be that, right?

That an artist should have the freedom to aspire to be that.

That every artist should be able to dream of their own version of their music career

and not have to stick to the one lane.

I believe some music for sure should be a luxury asset for the few.

Why can that be the case for every other industry but not music?

Why are there Prada bags that are $5,000 and there are H&M bags that are $5, and that's

completely fine?

The Prada bag is a luxury asset for a few people.

And nobody can own it, but everyone wants it.

And I think that's another great way to have music.

Why not?

Why does there have to be this "everything is the same" concept for music and not for

any other product?

I guess to play devil's advocate to that argument, it would be that music is kind of ahead in

front of the other industries in that way, that it's more democratic and more accessible

to all in contrast to fashion and physical objects.

Kind of a hippie way of looking at the world would be that the world would be a better

place if art wasn't commodified in that way, if it had other incentives than just the market

and economics of it all.

The problem is that in a perfect world where we didn't need money to live, yeah, I agree.

The best things in life are free.

Music is for everyone kind of thing.

I agree with you.

In an ideal perfect world, but that's not the world we live in.

Right now, I disagree with you that music is ahead of the curve with this because it's

not, it's in the hands of few.

It's not democratic.

There are about three people in the world, one of them is our friend Daniel Ek, who literally

decides what happens to every single artist in the world.

So that's the opposite of democratic.

That's actually a monopoly under a dictator pretty much and like his record labels, the

record labels around him.

So artists need to get paid if they want to continue to make music.

If we want music to be a global resource that makes the world a better place, I agree with

you.

That's what music does, but we need to protect the creators of music and right now they're

not being protected.

I think we have a lot of work to do before we get to your ideal world scenario, which

I agree would be the best.

Just to be clear, I don't actually disagree with you just playing devil's advocate.

Yeah, no, this is great.

But I mean, I'm also conflicted between the two scenarios because on one hand, I kind

of believe in an openness and free supply of most things.

But on the other hand, you also have to take into account what's practical and what's pragmatical

in terms of being an artist or being a composer.

And nowadays, basically the only alternative for artists is to travel and play tour constantly.

And that's okay when you're in your early 20s and before you start a family or have

other priorities.

So that kind of makes the entire music industry only accessible for a certain kind of person.

And I think art should be more evenly distributed among the population in terms of age and sex

and race and whatever.

And that's a part of it's the economic situation.

So I'm definitely in agreement with you that it should be possible to make a living from

music not exclusively through touring.

Right.

Yeah.

It's kind of a kind of a technical thing to be delving into the world of Web3 and NFTs

and stuff like that.

And it's probably a good idea to be early.

I don't know if you would be able to auction off that same song today for the same amount.

There's kind of a momentum or hype that goes along with NFTs being an early adopter.

Wait, you don't think I would be able to do it today?

I don't know.

That's the kind of open question.

It didn't happen very long ago.

It was only like three months ago.

Yeah.

Four months ago.

Time's moving fast.

Do you think so?

That you could release another single now and get the same amounts?

100%.

Of course.

I mean, it depends.

It depends on your song.

It depends on many factors, but I don't think it's necessarily a matter of that was momentum

because I didn't come into NFTs during that craze that there was in like 2021, you know,

when like board apes were, you know, half a million dollars.

I wasn't there then.

I started like a year later, pretty much when it was like it was sort of starting to fade.

I think, you know, I think anyone can do this.

Like I really don't think music has this like, obviously being early is good because you

get to learn about the technology before everybody else.

And so you have that first mover advantage because you just have, you just know of a

secret nobody else knows in terms of the tech, you know.

And then you can also teach other people and you can help shape this tech based on your

needs.

So that's the real advantage of being early because I can work with blockchain companies

and developers and tell them this is how I think it should be.

I can have an input on the future of the music industry.

That's the real first mover advantage.

And so you can sort of move things around in a way that is convenient to you.

But I think, you know, I could do it again, you know, if I wanted, if I had a song that

had a collector that was interested.

I really don't think it's necessarily a thing, something about hype, you know.

I worked really hard to find that one person, you know what I mean?

I also didn't just like put it up for auction and see what happens, you know, I definitely

fostered a community for years and traveled the world.

And I played 33 shows and took 47 flights around the world last year to really like

market myself, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Okay, so you had an interested collector beforehand to that particular song?

Yeah, I had a community, you know, I had a community of over 1500 people that I'd been

fostering for years.

So it's, you know, you could say the hype thing about maybe some artists that put out

an NFT like in 2021 and out of the blue, it just sold for like a million dollars, you

know, that happened.

It didn't happen to me.

It certainly didn't.

I wish I really wish it happened to me because I'll make it so much easier.

But regardless, I think it's easier to sustain in the long term if you really have control

of, you know, who your community is.

And just like any other visual artist, it's not like you're gonna just, you know, put

your art in a gallery and hope that someone comes and buy it.

No, you have to foster your community, like meet collectors and foster relationships.

And especially when it's a smaller community, you know, and it's not millions of people,

you have the capacity and the ability to entertain those relationships, you know?

Yeah.

And that seems to be a talking point I hear a lot these days, in terms of being an artist

in 2025, that building and nurturing a community is really important.

Because of that reason, for your sake as well, it's probably better in the long run that

you had to foster community instead of riding the hype train and just doing a one hit wonder

NFT, I guess.

I agree.

Yeah.

Is your fan base different now, post Web3 than before?

Maybe.

Or maybe you didn't know your fan base before in your label days.

There's that for sure.

Yeah, there is that.

I didn't know them as much as I know them now.

Like now I have a really special relationship with my community, you know, like we are beyond

just fan and artist.

Now we are team members, friends, collaborators.

We're just like in this together.

It's a really, really cool relationship that I have with them.

Before I would only really see them indirectly at my shows, you know.

One thing that I've noticed though, and that really surprised me positively was, you know

how in the music industry, in the traditional industry, people from labels or managers,

they often try to figure out like, who's your target audience, right?

Who, like what's their age range, gender, location, what other artists do they listen

to that are similar to you, right?

And so I always thought I had a specific target audience.

It was this kind of people, this category of people.

And then when I got into Web3 and the open market opened up in front of me and all those

walls were knocked down, I realized that none of that was true.

Like there is no reason why you should have a single category of people that will listen

to your music.

You know, that actually people that didn't fall into that description of the category

that the label or my manager had made, they were like my biggest fans all of a sudden,

you know.

And that's the best thing ever because maybe, you know, some people even came to me and

said, I don't think I would have listened to your music if I just heard you on the radio

necessarily.

But then I get to know you and I get to be part of your journey and I get to get insight

behind your song creation and how you, you know, build your career and live your life

with you a little bit.

Then I've become your biggest fan because, you know, it's so much more than just the

music.

The music, even for music artists, music is just an extension of us, of who we are.

And I think fans should be able to see what's beyond that, you know.

Yeah, and that's kind of the beauty of decentralization in general, maybe that you don't have to cluster

people together in terms of knowing who your audience are, because it could be a 20 year

old from Indonesia and a six year old from America.

Yeah, yeah.

That's all over the globe.

And then they come together and they, you know, I've had so many people become best

friends and even started dating each other because they met through my community.

You know, it's awesome.

That's nice.

You're delving into this tech frontier.

Does it bother you or do you think about if that takes away the focus from the music?

I actually made an April's Fool's joke yesterday on my Twitter account.

And I said, it didn't land very well.

I don't think people understood it.

But I said, artists should just focus on their art and let others take care of the business

side.

And that was a joke.

That was my April's Fool's joke.

But people were like, yes, that's right.

No, absolutely not.

You know, I've talked about this a lot.

Like, yes, it does take away from the music.

Yes, it does take time away from your artistic creation.

But it's worth it.

It's absolutely worth it because that time that you can dedicate to your music and to

your art and your creative expression, you're going to be in control of it.

And you can actually do it the way you want.

You can monetize it yourself.

But only if you have a full grasp and tight grip on the business side of things and on

the tech side of things.

Like we know, you know, all the biggest, most successful artists in the world, they know

exactly what goes on.

You know, they know what's going on on their social media.

They know what's going on in their business side of things.

And yes, they don't have a lot of time to just sit in their room or in the studio and

write songs.

You know, Taylor Swift is on tour 12 months out of the year.

Of course, she misses probably being at home, you know, and making music all the time by

herself.

But she knows that she can't just do that.

You know what I mean?

So I really think this is kind of an excuse that a lot of artists and a lot of people

in the business, that's the thing.

Like I feel like artists are brainwashed by the industry who's like, no, you just take

care of the business.

We'll take care of the artist's stuff.

We'll take care of everything else.

It's just a way to control people.

You know what I mean?

I'm not able to work with music managers because of that reason.

Like I fired so many, you know, and now I'm just like at the point where this is not going

to work.

You know what I mean?

So I just manage myself and I'm happy with that, you know.

And you've kind of come up the traditional way of recording albums, five of them, I think

I read somewhere.

And also, I think I saw a podcast with you where you referenced during COVID days that

you performed for, I think it was 3000 hours on Twitter spaces.

Yeah.

And I mean, doing something like that probably does wonders for your craft, I would think.

For sure.

And as you know, I work for an educational institution.

And so for kids or not necessarily kids, but students coming up now, that kind of skips

that part that you've gone through.

I mean, the traditional label route, recording albums, they're simultaneously developing

their craft and finding their voice and at the same time they're hearing about NFTs and

digital marketing, AI, social media presence and all of that.

Do you have any advice on balancing working on your craft and doing managing and being

a sovereign artist?

I think there's a time for everything, you know, I think you really have to be aware

of what it is that you need at that moment.

And so be able to prioritize what you need.

I was fortunate that before I started with Web3, I had my music made, I'd spent so much

time creating music, and I had so many songs and I had an album ready.

And so after that, I was able to focus for a whole year on marketing and the business

side of things and learning the tech because I knew I had this album that needed to come

out.

So sort of dedicate the time to each thing when you need to.

And then my second year in Web3, you know, was very much I made another album, you know,

and I'm sort of, I think it's important, whatever it is you're doing, make sure you're doing

it in a focused way.

So what I'll do right now is dedicate like maybe a month out of the year where I only

write songs and the business side of things is sort of on the secondary.

I still do it like when I have time, you know, I do the bare minimum to make sure it keeps

going or delegate some stuff.

But for the whole day, I just write songs.

And then the rest of the time, you know, maybe I'll be traveling for a couple of months and

I focus on that.

And then the rest of building, you know what I mean?

Just sort of compartmentalize based on the priority of that moment, not to overwhelm

yourself.

But I'm not going to lie.

There were times where I was working 18 hours a day, you know, until like six in the morning

and I would sleep for four hours for like a year and a half.

I did this and even now I still work like 14, 15 hours a day.

But it's what you got to do.

It sounds hard.

Yeah, but I love it.

It's my passion, you know, I'm working for my dream.

So yeah, it makes it worth it.

We're running out of time, but I'm hoping to have one last question.

Yeah, definitely.

Because you do a lot of community fostering and there's kind of a spectrum between artistic

integrity and community involvement.

I heard a podcast with John Mayer who was talking about that his fans often realize

that they like his stuff a few years after the release of the album.

And so his job is to stay just a little bit ahead.

So you don't like it until next year or the year after, he says.

So on the one end, you have someone like John Mayer where the artist is a visionary and

he's leading, not following.

On the other hand, fans might vote on a song's mix or which lyrics to include or which cover

art.

Where do you place yourself on that spectrum?

And do you think there's a point where involving the community too much is diluting the very

thing?

Yeah, I think there needs to be a balance there for sure.

I don't necessarily involve my community in my artistic choices.

Like that's the one thing that I like to keep for me.

It's the very first reason why I wanted this kind of freedom so that I could have full

control over that and just be able to express myself.

And I think it's in their interest that I keep that pure so that I keep my motivation

up and I can keep delivering value to them.

What I do involve them a lot in is, I just give them a lot of access.

I'm very transparent.

I'm very inclusive with my path.

So I'll allow them to come to the studio with me when I record.

They can't really tell me how I should sing something.

You know what I mean?

They're just going to watch.

But I want them to be part of that process and witness it and feel like they're really

a part of it.

And they hear my new songs first all the time.

They hear the news first all the time.

And I'm very, very open.

And there's this level of trust where I know they're not going to spoil it to anybody.

And I have my inner, inner circle, the people that have collected a lot of NFTs, they're

called the whales kind of thing, where we meet every month or so and we have a board

meeting, pretty much, where I explain to them what the next steps are.

And I do ask them for advice.

What would you guys do?

More from the business standpoint and the strategy planning standpoint than the artistic

side of things.

Because another great thing about having a community is they are a resource.

There's people in your community that have different talents, different skill sets, different

kinds of experience.

They come from different countries.

They run their own businesses.

And so it's in their interest to help you and you can really tap into their knowledge.

So yeah, I have really people that work in all kinds of businesses that can help me when

I need, you know.

Awesome.

Sounds good.

Well, I think we'll have to end on that note, Violetta.

Thank you so much for joining the podcast.

It was a pleasure talking to you.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'm really glad we can do this.

And I'm sorry for all the noise.

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