Four bored monkey-inspired musicians hoping to go platinum
Who says your Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT has to live behind a screen its entire digital life? Beyond access to the BAYC community, one of the most important benefits of owning a Bored Ape is gaining the rights to its respective IP. Over the years, this has given owners plenty of opportunities to create added value from their investments.
But for some creatives who have picked up NFTs from one of the most expensive collections on the market, this investment goes deeper than watching a line go up and down. Owning a monkey means the opportunity to build something that could potentially do what Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz did two decades ago: create a musical and cultural phenomenon that successfully straddles the line between reality and fiction.
So are any Bored Ape-led musical outfits in a position to challenge Gorillaz’s top spot in the growing virtual band pantheon? Let’s find out.
Congo: Timbaland’s archenemy
After blessing the airwaves with hits like Ginuwine’s Pony in the 90s, Timbaland gradually established himself as one of the music industry’s most prominent players. Today, the multi-platinum-selling producer hopes to leverage his influence and golden touch in Web3. How? Through one of the music industry’s most enduring ways of creating hype and excitement around a project: beef.
When Timbaland first purchased his Ape, it was simply known as Bored Ape #590. Today, Apen goes past Congo, and he has a bone to pick with Timbaland. However, unlike most music industry feuds, the two traded direct blows on the same track, Have an opinion. Of course, putting together such a feud would mean putting in actual work in the real world. To help sell this illusion, Timbaland maintained a hands-on approach in putting together the track’s music video. Speaking about this unorthodox publicity stunt in a previous interview with nft now, Timbaland explained: “The difference is [that blockchain-based characters] don’t die. [They] stay in the metaverse, it’s another world.”
In fact, the metaverse may prove to be the key to Kongo reaching his full potential as Timbaland’s rival. For anyone interested in keeping track of this rare man vs. the writer-conflict in hip-hop, is a fully fledged metaverse experience with Kongo currently in the works. Will more established players in the music industry take this unique intertextual approach with their NFT IPs?
Universal Music Group’s very own Bored Ape Band
In November 2021, Universal Music Group made headlines when they announced their intentions to form a sort of Bored Ape supergroup: Kingship. Founded under UMG’s Web3 imprint 22:22, Kingship immediately positioned itself as a Web3 parallel to Gorillaz as soon as the world discovered its existence.
So given that it’s been well over a year since these Bored Apes formed a band, they sure have at least delivered one song fans of the idea could rally around, right? Not completely. Currently, Kingship only has NFT passes that give users unlimited access to future events and projects it has lined up.
Instead of creating music, the team behind the project has built a roster of creative creatives that will enable them to bring this Bored Ape band to life. The main role in Kingship’s music is producer and songwriter Fauntleroy, best known for previous collaborations with the likes of Bruno Mars, Beyoncé and more. It points to a good chance of reaching Kingship do end up releasing music, it will bang.
Not every Bored Ape band has taken the time to deliver music to their potential fan base. The Bored Brothers – a virtual duo led by OneRepublic frontman Ryan Tedder and renowned musician and producer Kygo – hit the stage in March 2022 with a music NFT, video and more. The duo’s first single, “Drip”, was released exclusively on sound.xyz on April 22, 2022, and quickly sold out to 300 collectors for 30 ETH.
“This project stems from an overwhelming desire to curate and create music outside of our respective genres. We flirt with everything from deep house to Miami bass and deeper dance genres like Phonk,” reads the band’s description on sound.xyz.
With successful launches already under their belt, Bored Brothers’ eventual mission to provide users with an immersive fan experience via the metaverse looks less like a dream and more like a logical next step forward.
Escapeplan demonstrates what Web3-native curation could look like in the future
Created by Big Night Talent, Escapeplan is a producer and DJ duo with two BAYC NFTs as members. WME made headlines when they signed the band in March 2022. Soon after, the duo released their first single, “Jungle” featuring rapper Rich the Kid. Through ownership of one-of-a-kind Trippy tokens, a holder can claim four percent of all royalties generated by the single going forward.
Fans speculated that it wouldn’t be the last time this duo would practically work with another notable name in the mainstream music industry, and they were right. In late November 2022, Escapeplan followed up its previous success with the release of “Bad girl,” a track featuring DJ Sak Noel as part of the creative team.
So, will there ever be a Bored Ape band big enough to compete with mainstream artists? It’s too early to tell, but these four could be on their way to going platinum in the metaverse.
