Bitcoin Forum

i am restarting a previous topic, which i shouldn't have started with a silly, provocative subject line.

the question is this:

how can we promote bitcoin to rappers? they have an enormous reach and in many cases have fairly anti-establishment ethics. in general, it seems that the rap and hip-hop community could really go far with this, helping the entire bitcoin cause.

think about the reach of the megaupload promotional video created by swizz beatz.

who is in connection with this scene and do we have any idea for promoting it?

Maybe Snoop Lion can do a remix of this song.  That would be awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z9Jwp2x86o

I would also recommend maybe the Far East Movement to do a hip hop song on bitcoin.

Immortal Technique is your best bet.

I emailed the CFO asking if they could add btc as an option. Mentioned paysius and bit-pay..

OMG immortal technique, yes!

Fully support this idea. You can even get raps made such as: https://www.coindl.com/page/item/2

how about first looking at our social networks and seeing who we can reach with a clear, tight message about what it is, and why it is good for the people(s)?

Yeah, you'll want to think about what a record label actually does. Lots of promotion and developing relationships with distributors, artists, and other labels. It would be good to have someone with some industry experience to get started on it.

bitcoin i mean, not the record label idea...

You rang?!

I just had a meeting about this two nights ago.  But its not just rap... we are going to use all Genres...

If this was serious thread, I find it ironic. :)

please keep us up to date, I was very serious! I would love to see some quality hip hop and rap promoting bitcoins

sort-of related thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=106307.0

Let me check it out.  I had a fellow forum member here teaching me about BTC... (He even gave me one heehee)

Talking off line about what we do for a living, I explained what I do overall for Independent Unsigned Artists... turns out he is one!

So I'm working on my Professional Perspective of getting these new Artists off the ground (and making money) and he's working on his Professional Perspective of, well, virtually the same thing. 

Now specifically, I cater to "Underground Musicians" (of all Genres) and Bitcoin is certainly Underground... I imagine I can sell the idea of releasing Albums online and even throwing Bitcoin Concerts "IRL" 

Get Radio stations "Be tenth caller and qualify for the 25BTC Grand Prize which we'll be drawing at the next Blue Movie Concert in NY"

the idea of bitcoin concerts is cool.

the idea of paying for digital media downloads is already so, so dead. isn't it? god i hope so!

Now, Now.. You know what these artists pay to record?  PAY FOR YOUR MUSIC

i don't know man i think it's dead as an idea.

along w/ free music, something like this is probably the future:

http://airbornemusic.com/

ok i like your idea here.  need some product placement. 

brainstorming.
cascascius sells the broken 25 BTC physical piece that looks nice.  someone could make a few prototypes on a chain and seed to some rappers.  need a video that features them flashing the hologram...possibly being wasteful with 1 BTC coins making it rain, etc.

"pop that private key" ?

Speaking as a musician that's made money both online and in the meatspace (but not so much online anymore), bitcoin has potential to increase my market around the world. It makes it possible for musicians  to directly market their music in places it has appeal but not always an easy way to get paid. The vast majority of musicians make no money, a smaller group makes some money and a tiny percentage make the megabucks. Bitcoin and music share one important trait: international appeal, regardless of border and language.

Nobody pays for music online anymore because it's a pain in the ass to pay for it. Granted, many people would never pay for music even if they could do it easily, but there's still a sizable number of people that are aware of the importance of financially supporting music they love. But a lot of musicians and their listeners are still clueless about bitcoin. I have no doubt a sizable percentage would adopt it if they were made aware of it and if the btc were easily available.

Even as a musician, I know musicians I'd give money to just because I've listened to and loved their music for years but just never got around to buying anything from them and I'm not sure if they get all the money anyway, so why bother and it's all a pain anyway.

If a fraction of people within the bitcoin community could organize an education campaign directed at indie and international music websites combined with temporary bitcoin faucets at those sites (or contests, as hottweelz suggests) it would get bitcoin into the hands of people that might spend them on music onsite. If nothing else, a bitcoin "Rockefeller Moment" of throwing .05 btc around the internet off of music sites would be a helluva way to get people to install a bitcoin client and be exposed to it.

Blah blah blah...sorry for the babbling. Music and btc seem like a natural fit and both occupy a large part of my life.

 

I run CoinDL and am interested in growing the number of musicians that accept bitcoins. Please expand on the Rockefeller Moment concept.

In 1914, about 25 people were murdered by Rockefeller-paid guards of a mine in Ludlow, Colorado. It's known as the Ludlow Massacre.

Rockefeller hired a famous publicist (Ivy Lee) to help him recover from the bad PR. Lee suggested that Rockefeller start giving out dimes to people. It worked. Rockefeller handed out dimes to thousands of kids. He was remembered by hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers as the nice old man that gave out dimes, not the blood sucking parasite that wanted to control everyone and everything and murdered his own workers when they went on strike.

Bitcoin suffers from a bit of a PR problem with many people. Some that know about it see it as "hacker money". It's pushed that way in some media and the media view is most people's first impression of bitcoin.

If we could find a way to disburse .05 btc 100,000 times (5,000 btc) via indie music sites, fan sites, etc. and get people to download the client to get the btc, it would be a better intro than the "HACKERS STEAL MORE HACKER MONEY" headlines that are bound to continue. Getting music sites setup such as yours to accept btc beforehand (that'd be the trade-off for the free publicity that free bitcoin would bring) might even generate some sales to musicians, who would then see the benefit of the currency. Musicians get around. They're the original culture spreaders.

It would require donations and a secure way to disburse the donations to those it's intended for. It would be good for bitcoin, the bitcoin community, musicians and listeners.

I think I'll see the day that I can buy some Russian folk music or something from a Japanese bluegrass band, directly from the artists, using btc.

some upcoming rap news is going to be about bitcoin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o66FUc61MvU
http://coinbits.com/2012/09/09/rap-news-bitcoin-is-a-likely-topic-for-a-future-episode/

It's a cool idea but finding a Rockefeller is going to be hard. As CoinDL becomes more established and the BTC market cap goes up, something like this could happen but there are lots more directly effective things to be doing...like get Lady Gaga to wear a Bitcoin suit. :)

time to get back to this one.

Not sure a rap song about a topic that's pretty nerdy would be too marketable or something people would care about.

Arists accepting bitcoin for their songs would help though.  Why stop at hip hop though, any genre of music would be good.

There is a growing facebookish site "Trig.com (http://Trig.com)" that has launched a music selling platform where artist can sell songs through their profile and get 90% of the money while the site only takes 10%. Other people can also distribute their music through their profile and get 20% which means the artist then gets 70%. It's a great idea i think and it might become big. I've heard that a lot of artists are interested. If we would get this site to accept BTC it would be great since they would also profit from the media coverage  which they really need. I e-mailed them yesterday about it but they haven't answered yet. But it would be great if we mass e-mailed them asking them to accept BTC.

There is nerd rap, such as ytcracker http://www.ytcracker.com/v2013/ :)

I've been in and out of the Hip-Hop scene for years as an engineer and promoter.  Truth is guys, getting major artists to do a song is really easy.  It's getting them to do it for free, that's nearly impossible unless they absolutely believe in something and even then...it's nearly impossible.  ;D. Rappers and artists in general just don't do things for free, unless its for charity and even then, they are usually still being paid something.

I live in Miami now and have for many years.  Currently we locally have artists such as Lil Wayne, Drake, Rick Ross, P Diddy is a regular and that's just to name few off the top of my head.  Not to mention, every rapper in the biz always finds a way to Miami to party, record, rock shows or whatever.  Point being, you can throw a rock in nearly any direction, on any given day, and hit 2 or 3 chart toppers.  No problem.

What is the problem, is the capital.  You can book any of these artists to get on verses of songs or even whole songs, if the money's right.  Bigger the artist, more its going to cost.  Plus you have to pay the producer, book the studio time and ultimately fulfill the "rider", as you would any artist event.

Based on my personal experience and what it seems would best benefit Bitcoin I would suggest a combination of things, within a specific budget, to get the most reach out of the promotional campaign. As apposed to a single song all by itself which in reality would do very little to help bitcoin, unless it became a hit.  Very unlikely.  

 Just off the top of my head, here's how I'd approach it:

1.  Major concert event
Pick any major US city...I recommend Miami for its star power and media appeal.  Pick your event artists based on budget, pick venue, stage and lighting, etc, etc, etc.  WAAAY to many variables to list quickly.  But simply put, a huge, mega concert with some of the hottest names in the biz.

2.  Record a single song or two that is promotional in nature, pushing the Bitcoin brand and supporting the event.  If the budget is of pro level, you can also shoot a video.  I would hire artists with enough clout to generate good buzz from a record (meaning single song in this instance) but only for promotional purposes.  But also not so famous, that you exhaust your budget to do anything else.  You may think Jay-Z is the hottest thing ever, but you could quite possibly get nearly the same effect with 2-3 mid-high level artists at a fraction of the cost.  I saw someone mentioned a Bitcoin record label.  You could launch it from here if you wanted, but that's a different strategy, entirely.

3.  Add a charity aspect to the event

Adding a charity aspect has unlimited benefits.  First, it's good karma and helps Bitcoin battle some of the negative press it has received.  i.e.  black market money, lawsuits, "kiddie porn" or whatever.    Second, it draws mainstream media in droves which increases the, reach per dollar spent, through the roof.  Think CNN, Huffington Post, etc.  Third, it draws bigger artists for smaller price tags plus the advertising, venue, etc. discounts can be tremendous.  With a little luck and clout, you may even be able to get a major network to carry the show live, because of the charitable aspect.  MTV, BET, HBO, etc.  (This is a game changer!)

4.  Bitcoin Marketing

Bitcoin or the Bitcoin community (however you want to bill it) will be the overall sponsor.  Bitcoin is the dominant brand in all promotions, banners all over the events, etc.  (If you've ever been to a major concert, you should know how the promoting of sponsors is typically displayed.) Too many ways to list.  

Now, you've brought a bunch of mainstream artists together for a cause, that is brought to you by Bitcoin.  This in turn will put Bitcoin on the minds of potentially MILLIONS of fans, worldwide.  Target age, 18-29, not to mention the lightning bolt it would send through the rest of Hip-Hop's elite circles.  

This is where the Bitcoin community has to be awesome at educating everyone on the who, what, when, where and why's of Bitcoin.  Some of these artists are going to fall in love with Bitcoin and will continue to push it on their own.  This is where you have the "viral" potential when artists speak Bitcoin in interviews and Bitcoin starts to pop up in original songs and next thing you know, someone is mentioning Bitcoin in the next feature film and its a wrap.

You can scale this up or down based on budget.  At the event(s) you can do things like setup kiosks to help people get started and purchase bitcoins, buy merchandise, even force people to buy Bitcoins to purchase tickets or VIP passes, backstage access....I mean the list goes on and on and on.  

And after all of this, the event itself has the opportunity to break even at minimum and maybe even turn a small profit.  So if done right, you get all the mentioned benefits and countless more that in the end, is financially a wash.  Remember, this is because of the charity aspect.  The goal is not to turn a profit but breaking even, from a PR standpoint, is fine.  

I see I've gone on much longer than I'd planned (guess the love of it is still in me) so ill leave it there and if anyone wants to take this shell of a concept and get serious, count me in.  Ill help in anyway I can.  One last point ill make about the entertainment industry, is to keep in mind that its a very small industry.  It may seem big on TV but its really not.  So don't be intimidated.  They all know each other and news travels fast through this elite group.  You just have to be wise in your approach.  Hope this helps.

if bandcamp would accept BTC, that would be something, they must take in considerable $$$ every day. it would be a nice slap at iTunes.

great post coinseeker.

i don't really have the connections but i hope somebody follows up on your suggestions.

I am actually a hip hop artist and I am working on a song about bitcoin

www.listentotoby.com

Maybe KRS ONE would do it.. he's really awesome

Thank you for that.  I hope so too.  i realize I got off on a tangent and people don't often read long posts but, it's truth that the entertainment industry is easy to utilize, if you have the money. Get the money, you can get pretty much anything you want.  They are all for sale...or for rent, is probably a better way to put it.

I used to work in the music industry and I now believe music should be free.  Majority of artists make little to no money because everyone else gets their cut first.  If anything I think bitcoin could be good as a way of disassembing the record industry.  If you like someone's music just donate to them directly

Pretty much well-called!
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1sfir9/snoop_dogg_tweets_coinbase_and_bitpay/

Just say hey rappers if you would like to fight back against the piracy and other probs in the music industry you should adopt Bitcoin as a way of payment for you music, concerts, etc.

Many rappers love to brag about how rich they are.  They do this by boasting about their dollar balances, expensive cars, houses, drinks.  It's just a matter of getting some rappers interested in bitcoin and getting invested.  Eventually they will have some lyrics about carrying 1 BTC on their iphone, walking into a club and dropping the whole lot on the bar :)

Bits Be Tripping Theme song is a 'rap'/trap song themed on Bitcoin/Altcoins, only a 12 bar verse, but didnt need a full song for a theme.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_NSTnYMdN0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_NSTnYMdN0)

However, our first episode caught a lot of hell on creating a format based on this style ... to the point we have pulled episode 1 and are in the works of rerecording under a normal context.

The point of the channel is very specific, but lost in the entertainment value we were trying to project. We are adjusting the format to be high production, but offer a clear and consise analysis in each video specific to a range of subject matters on the Bitcoin/cryptocurrency universe.

Episode 1 and 2 will be posted this sunday (december 15th, 2013)  with the format change and hopefully gets good acolades.

Test rig setup:
eVGA Supernova 1300W G2 (Gold 80)
Asus P8P67 Rev 3.0 (1155slot)
Intel i5 3570k stock clock/cooler
Corsair Ballistix 8GB (2x4gb PC12800)
Sandisk 128gb SSD
<variable graphics cards depending on episode)

Episode 1
Purpose of the episode is to see how much ambient tempature plays on a Litecoin(any scrypt) Mining rig. We run the rig in a typical 75 (25% humidity) degree indoor environment (pair of Gigabyte 7970HDs @ 1000mhz core) for a 10min operational test, then take the rig outside with ambient tempature @ 27 (19% humidity), run same 10min test. Take both internal and external thermal/power test using a laser tempature sensor and a Kill-a-watt monitor.

Episode 2
Focuses on multiple test, trying out R9 290x, R9 290, R9 280X, R9 270x, R7 260X ; showing hashrates, temps and our best configurations for highest hashrates.

Other future episodes including walking people through adjusting core/memory clocks and adjusting intensity and thread concurrency to dial in their card for best hashrates... We are still filming this one, but have great consistant results to the point we think we can communicate the best/fastest way to get to this...