How UMG is building out its Bored Ape Metaverse Band, Kingship

When Universal Music Group’s 22:22 label revealed his virtual band Kingship last November the premise felt really new: a group consisting of Bored Ape Yacht Club and Mutant Monkey NFT characters, born from decentralized IP and built for metaverse. A Gorillaz too Web3 era.

The very next day, the legendary music producer Timbaland revealed his own plans for Bored Ape-based groups. Eminem and Snoop Dogg have since used their Monkeys in a music video and MTV appearance. Many other Ape NFT owners have exploited their IP rights. Along the way it has been NFT setback, Boring Monkey backlashand metaverse backlash to top it all off.

But one year later, despite the changing tides of Web3, 22:22 is still building its kingdom.

More and more of the vision has been shared in recent months: the launch of NFT key card which access goes to the group’s content, a brand agreement which put Apes on M&M’s candyand a first taste of music from Grammy-winning hitmakers Hit-Boy and James Fauntleroy.

Today, Kingship debuts Kurt the Roadie, the first character in his world who is not a monkey. Flamingo allies are inspired of a monkey, though: the band’s original Mutant Ape NFT artwork from Ape IP Creator Yuga Labs has a pink flamingo wrapped around its neck. (Kingship’s band member Ape NFTs are owned by famous creator/collector, Jimmy “j1mmy” McNelis.)

The Ethereum NFT Profile Picture (PFP) is being sent free to all Kingship Keycard holders today, with each of the 5,200 images of Kurt featuring a generative blend of hand-drawn traits. The artwork will be revealed on November 14. Some features were designed in collaboration with Fauntleroy, a well-known producer and songwriter who has worked with Beyoncé and Bruno Mars.

“You start to see the whole creative team start to immerse themselves for the whole world coming together,” said 22:22 founder Celine Joshua Decrypt.

Kurt the Roadie isn’t just a bonus NFT for supporters, however. He will also play a functional role in the custom metaverse platform that 22:22 is building for the game, serving the purpose of flying users’ characters to an island setting – as the artwork above suggests.

Joshua showed Decrypt a technical demo of Kingship’s upcoming 3D metaverse world, which is built with the Unreal Engine and designed to support potentially hundreds of concurrent users. Owning an NFT key card gives holders access to one of the four member-inspired towers in the world, while owning all four members’ NFTs unlocks an exclusive floating villa.

Building immersive, interactive experiences for music fans is at the heart of 22:22, which Joshua founded then join Universal Music Group (UMG) in 2018. It was established with a focus on content creators and influencers, as well as multimedia storytelling, and has evolved into Universal’s destination for Web3 experimentation.

“I said, artists are going to want to have this immersive experience where their creativity comes to life, almost like the way you build a video game,” she recalled telling UMG CEO Lucian Grainge when she joined.

“And it’s just more fun,” she added. “We have more fun creating this way than anything I’ve been able to do before.”

Joshua recalled seeing the convergence of artistry and technology firsthand when she rose through the ranks in the music industry, joining the IT department at Warner Music Group. Later at Sony, when streaming took over the industry, Joshua worked on Beyoncé’s surprise 2013 self-titled album launch– and then increasing room for experimentation in the room.

“From there I started to look at everything very differently,” she said Decrypt“in the sense of a new format and how audiences and consumers wanted to interact with content.”

Kingship’s Key Card NFTs launched in May, several months after the band was announced, which Joshua chalked up to the due diligence and necessary compliance to develop his own drop. That set UMG up for future Web3 moves — “I assure you, we weren’t sitting here counting our Bitcoin,” she said — but the NFT world shifted from boom to gloom during that time period.

Still, while Kingship is gradually showing its hand ahead of a full launch of music and token-gated experiences, UMG is taking interesting steps that could further Web3 adoption in the industry. Joshua said the deals for Fauntleroy and Hit-Boy, who serve as co-executive producers on the project, could be among the first major artists to include a smart contract component.

Smart contracts contain the code that powers NFTs and autonomous decentralized applications (apps). Some marketplaces have recently moved against honoring royalties to creators, stimulates vigorous debate— But using smart contracts for transparent, on-chain royalty participation for artists is still considered a promising real-world use case for blockchain technology.

“They participate in all the royalties that go forward on all our NFTs,” Joshua said of the duo. “They are part of us. They are part of the community. They are part of the kingdom – why shouldn’t they be? I think these smart contracts and the way we pay artists in royalties and all that will advance the music business.”

In one way, Kingship’s gradual rollout feels very much in line with many Web3 projects being built publicly, piece by piece—albeit with a major label backing it.

But the process also suggests that 22:22 and collaborators are taking a methodical approach, perhaps trying to avoid the new Bored Ape band concept being seen as a gimmick. “Without the monkeys there is no kingdom,” said Joshua Decrypt– but she also pointed to a desire to do much more than connect existing Ape artwork with fresh tunes.

“We have the best artists and designers in the class. We want to expand our world to new characters and showcase the creativity and work. These characters can continue to have their own narratives and history in the world,” she said. “The Fall [today] is the beginning of the world we are developing.”