Music in Web3: Manu Manzo on art, technology and music on the blockchain.

Many new artists are so hungry for success that they are willing to say yes to anything. For singer-songwriter Manu Manzo, saying no has its own special power.

“People will always put things in your head and you have to trust yourself,” says the Venezuela-born and Miami-based performer. “You’re an artist for a reason. You have a gift and you are the one with the ideas. I am a strong believer that when you are yourself and fight for the things you believe in, you attract all the abundance.”

Manzo is one of the first two new artists selected to join the Mastercard Artist Accelerator, which teaches independent artists to harness the community-building power of blockchain, the Web3 and the metaverse. Mastercard welcomed Manzo and R&B/soul singer and BRIT School alum Young Athena to the program on Friday, and Manzo performed and appeared on panels at SXSW over the weekend. A further three artists will be announced in the coming weeks, representing a range of genres and selected for their unique and diverse stories and sounds.

Fans will be able to access exclusive content from the artists and learn to use Web3 tools alongside them through a limited edition Mastercard Music Pass NFT minted at Polygon starting in mid-April.

“If Web1 was about reading on the internet, and Web2 was about reading and writing on the internet, Web3 is about reading, writing and owning – and ownership for artists is especially important,” says Sebastian Oddo, who leads Mastercard’s Web3 marketing strategy and helps direct the Artist Accelerator program. “We want to bring mentors to the table so artists can learn from them and let fans be a part of the journey by making music with the same tools.”

What excites Manzo most about the program is the opportunity to reach fans in new ways. “Music is connection,” she says. “We buy things because they make us feel something. This program brings you one step closer to reaching more and more people.”

Manzo, who moved to Miami when she was 11, is the daughter of a director father and an actress mother, and she wanted to be an actress herself when she was young. From an early age, her parents instilled in her a strong work ethic: “This is fun, but it’s also a job. It’s not all glitz and glam and all fun and games. You have to study it. It is a craft.”

She graduated from a magnet high school for theater, but discovered that her true passion was singing. At a summer program at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, “it just clicked for me,” she says. “This is what I want to do.” After two years studying vocal performance at Berklee, she dropped out to launch her career in Miami, working with a producer to embrace her Venezuelan musical roots and refine her sound — Latin-infused neo-soul, sung in Spanish.

“It has evolved so much, and at the same time not so much,” she says. “It was very important from the beginning to know myself and where I wanted to go. I took my time to figure out what I wanted. I’ve matured as a person, but at the core of it, I’m still the same 19-year-old girl who came back to Miami and started writing music. It’s the same little flower, but it just blooms in a different way.”

Many of the artists Manzo has most admired—Beyoncé, Shakira—have been able to sustain long creative careers while staying true to who they are. Through social media and technology, artists today have an increasingly greater ability to maintain their independence and remain true to themselves.

“One of the biggest benefits of being independent is that you have creative freedom,” she says. “You have the freedom to explore. You have the freedom to fail. Like me as a business – I don’t mind failing if it’s something I felt in my heart was right.”

Banner photo: Manu Manzo performs as a person, but at the core of it is still the same 19-year-old girl who returned to Miami and started writing music. It’s the same little flower, but it just blooms in a different way.”

Many of the artists Manzo has most admired—Beyoncé, Shakira—have been able to sustain long creative careers while staying true to who they are. Through social media and technology, artists today have an increasingly greater ability to maintain their independence and remain true to themselves.

“One of the biggest benefits of being independent is that you have creative freedom,” she says. “You have the freedom to explore. You have the freedom to fail. Like me as a business – I don’t mind failing if it’s something I felt in my heart was right.”

Banner photo: Manu Manzo performs at the Fast Company Grill at SXSW on Saturday night. (Photo credit: Macy Salama)