​​Art brought me to Bitcoin and the possibilities that it offers to artists to be not only creatively free, but financially free as well and in control. The music industry is monopolized by the streaming platforms. At the moment everyone's using Spotify to prove their value to other people. Look how many streams I have. Look how many listeners I have. If Spotify were to disappear tomorrow, all that will be gone and you would be worth nothing. And your songs have never existed.

Hey everybody. Welcome to Orange Hatter. I've got a very exciting announcement to make today. The website for the Orange Hatter retreat is up and registration is now open. We're offering a 21% discount for anyone who registers by January 30th, 2024. We did have to move their retreat up by one day. So it will run from March 16th through the 20th. In Merida, Yucatan, Mexico. This is in partnership with project Yucatan. It's going to be an amazing five days of recharge, restoration and deep connections with women Bitcoiners. It will be an absolutely incredible chance to meet like-minded women and form friendships that will last a lifetime. Please go to the website, www.orangehatter.com/yucatan. And I will see you in Mexico. And now onto our very wonderful guest. Enjoy Welcome to Orange Hatter. Very, very excited to have you here. can't wait to dive into your story. We're going to talk a lot about, music and art, preserving it on the blockchain, a subject I think a lot of people are somewhat confused about, so, so excited to have you here to share your experience with us. Welcome to Orange Hatter.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Cool. So let's start by, just sharing a little bit about yourself with our audience.

Yeah. my name is Violeta. I'm from Italy. So born and raised in Italy, moved around Europe for a few years. Ended up in Nashville. That's where I live now. I'm a musician full time professional. music artists, I'm a singer songwriter. Meaning, I make a living, just writing songs and singing them, recording them, performing and selling my music ultimately. and I've been doing that for 10 years. I started when I was 18, my professional journey. And yeah, I, I guess that's, that's it. I grew up in a very artistic family, very non, like financially interested family. My family is not very interested in. Finances or anything like that. They're just kind of very creative and, very supportive of me and my sister's journey and the arts and. Yeah, I, I'm just always looking for new ways to put out music. Yeah.

So you said your family's artistic, are they all musicians?

In fact, no, but they are creative in many ways. my sister's a movie editor. She edits edits, film for living. my mom doesn't have a creative job, but she is a creative, very creative person, like business-wise and like just ideas. She has an idea person. So very valuable to me, you know, for, uh, entrepreneurial life. and my dad's Disney artist. So he draws comics for Disney.

How fun is that?

Yeah.

So what kind of projects has he been involved in?

Mostly? well, we have this comic book in Italy called Mickey mouse that actually comes out every week for. 80 years, I think since like 80 years ago. Yeah. And he grew up reading it. I was passionate about it, learned how to draw. It ended up working for this publication comes out every week. So that's what he's been doing for the last 30 plus years. Uh, yeah.

Wow. Does he make the drawings by hand still?

it's all of it by hand

all of it by hand. So I've seen films where in the 1950s, It's black and white and people are sketching out Mickey mouse and they have 10 pages of Mickey mouse. They're sketching just with each frame a little bit different. So he's still doing that by hand.

Yes. And it's not quite, I think those that you've seen are how you build, how you create cartoon, like animated. yeah, you literally draw each frame and then scroll through them really fast. What my dad does is really just like a comic book So pages simply that you turn, but yes, it's all by hand, and the process really fun. He does the drawing with a pencil. And then there's someone else in charge of inking the borders and there's someone else in charge of coloring. and my dad does the drawing and writes. the script for the different stories. Yeah.

Where does he get his inspiration from. Because that's a lot of pressure. That's all. Creative output.

It is. I mean, where do artists get their inspiration? I don't know. I just think they have something to express and that's the only way they can express it. You know, I think the inner child is the, always there. he's very passionate about stories and yeah, just there. Bright imagination

So you grew up watching him create his work. Did he work from home?

Yes. He worked from home.

So you got to see. How he worked. What did you think? What did, did you think that your dad was like a super, super cool.

I guess it was normal for me growing up. My dad drew. And that's what he did. And I thought it was cool of course, because he could draw me and my mom and my sister, like caricatures, it was always fun. And. We go to comic fairs with him and see other artists that he was friends with and it was fun to be involved. And that comic world. I'm very, also, it's kind of close to the video game world to it's kind of connected. But my dad's very on the organic, like grassroots, just drawing with a pencil, very that. So I thought, but he changed, he did a few other things. He's also a musician, not, not professionally, but he plays music. That's kind of, who really pushed me to get into music. It was him.

Let's talk about that, when did you start playing music and how did you get introduced to it?

Yeah. I mean, I was very young. I was about three years old and my dad. Was playing guitar at home Just playing around, jamming. And he would jam with me and my sister, we were little kids and we would sing songs. Right. And that's when he noticed I had a good pitch. My tone was, was right for a three-year-old. Okay. She could sing. And so they found the children's choir and that's where I went. I attended that for a couple of years. And when I was five, I started taking piano lessons. and then was pushed relentlessly by my parents. Like really, to take 11 years of piano, classical training and. Yeah, they really didn't give me much of a choice. Yeah. At the time, you know, they would say, okay, well, if you don't want to do it, you can quit. But then when your parents give you an ultimatum like that, And you're like, oh no, I'm going to let them down. Like you don't want to quit. So, but I'm grateful at the time. I kind of hated it because obviously they were forcing me. But I'm gratefully forced to me because now it's my full-time job. And, you know, Yeah, I'm really happy.

When my kids were little. I took them to a concert by the five Browns. And there was five siblings in the same family and they all went to Juilliard for classical. Oh my God. And the reason I brought them there was because I really wanted to inspire my kids to love music and play. Cause I, I brought them to Suzuki piano and things like that. But none of them really went into it. Yeah. But I, I try to push them with a piano thing. It didn't work. So tell me about what it was like, like Mo. It gives me more details. For 11 years, you were pushed by your parents to play piano. What was that like?

They would just, they would put pressure on me. This is how I grew up. and I don't know if it's, if it works for every kid, but it worked for me. I, I am very productive when I'm given tough love. So it's You're going to do that. And I'm like, no. And they're like, oh, then you may as well just. Do something else entirely because you're not worth this. That works for me. That incentivizes me. I'm I'm not saying it as good for everybody. But for me, it's what, a lot of the times in my life, when I was almost challenged. To quit, cause. It was like, I can't do this. Yeah. And then I would see like, like someone that I know loves me and I know how's, my back is telling me, I believe in you. You can do this. And if you don't, well, I guess you're not so strong after all that works for me. If someone believes in me more than I do believe in myself. That's inspiring to me. So that's how my parents would approach it. They really understood what I, the kind of direction that I needed. So they did. And I had a few teachers study classical music in the meantime. I realized that I wasn't very prone to follow, like to study. In the traditional way. like my ears valley. Very developed. So I would list here songs and TV and then, learn them by ear, without reading music. That's how I approach things now. I remember watching back to the future of the movie. and seeing Marty McFly, like shredding the guitar on the stage. And that's what inspired me to pick up the guitar. It's just saying, oh my God, I want to be like that. So, yeah.

how many hours a day did you have to practice?

Not much, one hour and a half or so every day for six year old is like,, No, I didn't like it very much. But I'm so glad I did because it just really shaped my foundation. As a musician. Now I can understand music very well, just by listening to it. and starting when you're young, I'm not saying it's necessary, but it helps developing this musical brain that you, that you have and you agenda, you're going to just have it with you forever. So, yeah.

What genre do you play in though? You mentioned it was jazz and

kind of it's like this mellow jazzy kind of send your songwriter live, or you kind of chill music.

How did you find your pointed passion about. when you were studying classical.

I didn't find it honestly until. Somewhat recently compared how many years I've been doing music. I guess when I was in my teens, that's when I started developing my genre. But I went through so much, people telling me what they thought I should sound like. the music industry is very much like that. And, you know, this is kind of a Genesis of why I'm here, you know, and Bitcoin. Community talking about this stuff, because it started very early in my teens when everyone started chiming in like, oh no, you should sound like this and you should sound like that. And this is a strategy you should take. And. And you know who you are, you know, You know who you are from the beginning, but maybe you're too young to be able to write it down or act on it. But you have a feeling. But you're also, I also felt like I should listen to people that perhaps, knew more than me. And so for many years, I would say for like eight or nine years, I was very confused. And I always had an intuition, but people around me in the music industry, managers, label people, booking agents, people to book your shows, they all want to have a say. And it I've come to the conclusion that it's not really because they really believe that's how you should be in how you're going to be successful. But it's because that's what they're familiar with. Because probably they don't know how to work with you otherwise. So they It's them not really knowing how to do their job. So they try to direct you to what they can handle. That's the conclusion I've come to. And I was signed to a major label when I was 18. Which was really, hard impact into the crazy centralized corrupt industry. That it is. That was 10 years ago, my path started.

what were you doing that got their attention? That they started to want to mold you in a direction that they wanted to take you.

Yeah, I did, um, X-Factor in Italy, I did a talent show. On TV. I, I sang a song and I played a ukulele on the stage at the auditions that I got four yeses. And then I went, passed every round of audition. Every round of the live show got to the final. Third. And then they offered me a deal.

What was your family's reaction when you said I want to go on the X factor?

They said, hell yeah.

Yeah.

My dad came with me to the audition. And w they were all super excited for it. You know, I was 18. I was still in school. but they said, yeah, absolutely. And they follow the whole journey. You know, you're I was on TV in front of like millions of people. And so it was really cool.

Did you sing a song that you wrote yourself?

No, I couldn't that wasn't not allowed. So there's another thing.

What did you, what did you sing.

I sang, the covers different things, during the auditions, you know, I could pick, I could sort of pick my songs, but they were like almost forced you to sing whatever they had in there. Catalog of songs that they could show on TV. And then doing it. Copyrights stuff like that. Yeah. and then during the live shows you literally had no say you had to

really?

Yeah. Okay.

I thought they were. I hear a lot of people say oh, your choice of song is so important. And.

No, maybe other shows, but not X-Factor. They decide for you. It's all scripted. Yeah.

So what songs did you actually sing?

Oh, God, I sing. Um, I remember I sang a U2. one. That song from U2. Is it good? Yeah. I say Friday, I'm in love by the cure. I sang I mean really mostly they were picking songs that were trending at that moment, on the radio.

Really? Okay. Yeah. So it wasn't what you connected with. It. Wasn't a story that you wanted to tell. It was just literally a show. Yep. And you were just one of the pawns on the show.

Absolutely. You'd have to sign a contract before you start. Because you're also isolated from the world for two months, you're in this house kind of like this one. Yeah, no phone, no internet. You can't talk to your family or anybody for two months. You have cameras all around you all the time. It's like your reality show and you can't leave. There's a guy at the door. Bulky guy. You've signed the contract, that if you leave, you have to pay $70,000. Yeah. So. And I was 18. I didn't know what I signed. I didn't know what I was doing. And even afterwards when the show ended. The record, a record label, A major record label. I use, I always named it's Sony music. I can. I don't care. They offered me a deal. A record deal. And it's the kind of deal that's called 360 degrees deal, which means. Normally, they give you an advance of money. And then you don't make any money until they've recouped the advance through the work that you do. Right. I signed a deal like that without the money advance. Meaning, they would take up to 95% of everything I did. But there was nothing to recoup. From their side. And I didn't know what I, what I signed. They got me into their office. They didn't. Advise me to consult with a lawyer. They just say, we want to offer you a record deal for five albums. Over the next five years and we're going to blow you up. And I said, hell yeah.

And they were going to take 95% of,

I didn't even read. I didn't read it. I didn't know anything. And these like 50 year old men. And the office, you know, with an 18 and a half year old girl. Wow. Yeah. Cause I was of age. You know your parents, right? So, okay. I just signed it and then I realized later on what I'd done. But it's fine because I was so young, and it's better to do those things when you're young.

Yeah. It's a learning experience. Yeah. What were the other people like in the house that you are trapped in?

They were crazy. No, they were just musicians like myself, people that, maybe they were not famous, they were not professional perhaps, or some of them were, but maybe they do like weddings or, like paid gigs, cover gigs and stuff. yeah, They're just regular people, of course artists can be a little. A little crazy sometimes, but, uh, it was fun. It was a great experience, you know?

So you signed this crazy five-year five album deal. Are you still bind to that?

No, no, I was, I was in it for two years and then I realized they had actually breached something. The, uh, the contract said, we have to release five albums within this period of time. They didn't even release one. So it was on them really, because I had delivered an album and they didn't release it. And so I went up to them by myself. I said, guys, I don't think this is working out. Can we just. Part ways peacefully. And they said, okay, and so I moved on.

Were you able to take your album with you?

I was they sold back the master to me, so, okay. Yeah. So that's good.

That's so interesting that, that whole business model with the X factor

it's stupid, the whole business model in the music industry is like a really terrible predatory loan. Imagine if a bank right, gives you a mortgage, you're not gonna not make money until you've paid it back. You're going to go. Hey, little by little, right, right. But you have to live right. With the label is different. They give you a loan. And you're not allowed to make any money until they've until you've paid it off. Right. So imagine they give you half a million dollars. Which is impossible to make. nowadays music industry is really hard. What are you going to do? Like literally they're gonna, you know, Spend some of that money for your promotion, et cetera. What if it doesn't work? What if it doesn't work out? And then I'm going to give you half of that to live. You can live off of that. You'd be for a year to buy a house, whatever. Yeah, but they're never going to make that money back and in the meat, and then you can't make any money. Yeah, all the money that you generate goes back to them. Right. And so, so many artists just. end up, you know, being poor, being broken. Not knowing what they've gotten themselves into, um, because the industry makers. Keep them out of the conversations, including managers, men, music managers are not involved. It's not them. It's not their name. So they do, what's beneficial to them. So you really can't trust anyone.

So the musicians are really being exploited

a hundred percent

in this industry,

a hundred percent.

Why do. Do you say musicians can't make money? Can't make half a million dollar season. You see all these big stars, living up the big life

you see them for sure. but those are. 0.1% of the musicians in the world. There are. Hundreds of millions of really talented musicians out there, that is really hard for them to build communities. Perhaps that are smaller, but better. Because, the music industry is monopolized by the streaming platforms. So if you're don't have a presence over there, Then you're basically. Irrelevant in the bigger picture. Uh, and if you have a presence over there, You're not really making that much money because not many people know. But every stream on Spotify. equals 3 cents of a dollar. So if you have a million streams, you're only making $3,000. Some cities you can't even pay one month rent. And it's a million streams. How much time does it take to get a million people? Just listen to your song, right? So Snoop dog came out with an article the other day. He had a billion streams and made $45,000 a billion streams. Because everyone's taking a piece of the pie and it's just like, it's really hard. Even for people like him, who's he doesn't need money. He's big. He's putting his, you know But it's, he's one of the few that speaking up about this, And so yeah, musicians are exploited by everyone and they would rather have fame than wealth, or just be able to survive off of your music. They'd rather millions of people listen to your song and you make zero. Then a thousand people listen to your songs and you making a good living. It's. Okay.

So is that a choice? Is that just a strategic choice for musicians? For the sake of art?

I think it's kind of, for the sake of ego. To be honest. And I, it, this is a hot take, but in my opinion, if you're an artist you shouldn't really care. if what makes you happy is making your art for a living, That should be satisfying to you. It's not about how many people see this, but can I make my art for a living and not do anything else? Yeah. Then you're successful. Not like the vanity metric. 10 million people listen to. So it is a choice, but at the same time, it's become the standard of the music industry. Anyone will tell you if you don't have a million Spotify listeners or a million TikTok followers you're irrelevant. And musicians don't have any education around the alternative ways. That you have to actually make a living and connect better with the people that appreciate what you do. cause the gatekeepers. You know,

so you're talking about mass distribution. What about a live gigs? Because I, my kids tell me, I don't know, my kids is telling me that musicians nowadays must make their living doing live gigs because the streamings on the platform are only for the purpose of letting people know that you exist so that they will come to your live gigs.

They're correct. They are correct. Yeah. Very accurate. And that's what I did, until a couple of years ago. made my living through performing, which when you think about it, it's kind of a paradox that what you really spend a lot of money on is, and a lot of time on is producing your music. Like your product is your music, and that's the very thing you give away for free. Right. And then you physically have to go to places. In the era of the internet, you physically have to go to places. When it could be so easy that you sell a music online. You have to go to places, exhaust yourself. You know, and, um, and perform, and then that could be taken away any day. COVID pandemic. What happened? I was jobless, I had to get government help because I couldn't pay my rent. Yeah. and so they are right, but. It's wrong. I believe it's a wrong principle that your product is what it's like. If you go to a grocery store. And you can get anything in the store for free. But then. Then they're going to try sell you. Kroger t-shirt. You're way out. Right. You know? But you can get your, your lettuce. You can get your produce for free. But we're going to try convince you to buy a t-shirt on the way out. Right. Makes no sense, you know,

you're right. That's a good visual.

So people tell musicians you're not going to make money from, from your music, but you can make money from your merch. I'm like product is my music, not a t-shirt.

If you build a small community of passionate followers who really identify with the message in your music and the stories that you share. Is that part of the joy that a musician would be able to take advantage of monetarily.

Yes. I mean, absolutely. that's kind of my situation right now. I built a much smaller community, but it's very passionate. So when they say 1000 true fans, you know, that theory it is active actually real. that's what I have 1000 true fans, 1,400 to be accurate. Who connect deeply with what I do and the journey I'm on and not necessarily just the music itself. But the way they support me is they buy my music. And I reward them for supporting me that way, by being available to them and spending time with them and giving them access to my process and my live shows for free. So I've flipped it. I sell my music. And then they can have deeper access if they decide to, to support me in that way. I prefer doing that. That's what I spend money on producing the music, writing the music time, you know, all that stuff is what I want to be the product.

One of my kids had acting job. She was a minor. I had to be on set with her. A lot of people see actors almost as a free access to the entire life their entire person. So their crafts, when you're acting the craft is the piece of performance that you put out there, right? Like a movie or show or whatever. But for whatever reason, In the public eye, they should have access to you as a person as well. All of you, your relationship or what you're doing personally, your personal beliefs philosophies, your political leanings, all of that. At least like. In my mind, Looking at it from the outside and also has a parent of minor actor. I felt that that was exceptionally unfair. I didn't want her her performance to give access to everybody. To her, all of herself, because I believe that part remain private. So, but what you're saying is almost the opposite. Your art is the music and you then opened up yourself, all of yourself to your audience as a way of building the community and the relationship.

Yeah. Yeah, I understand what you're saying. The reason why I'm saying this, like the opposite is because that's up to me. Whether I want to open up to my audience is up to me and I don't have to, because I've already sold my product. Right. So that's the product that goes without like, there's no terms and conditions on that unit. You sell it, you. The person owns it and the deal is done. The exchange has happened. and then whatever, however I want to interact with my audience is up to me. That's what I call artists sovereignty, artists decentralization. So that you own, you have the right to choose. Whereas in the traditional music industry, your product is given out for free. And what eventually you're going to sell is access to you. so like follow me on Tik TOK while I cook. Watch my entire life unravel. Be in my life reality TV show. So you become the product. Whereas I want my music to be the product and I wanted it to be up to me how much I want to open up to my audience. So that's also another big thing. You know, cause when labels used to tell me. Build your TikTok numbers On TikTok nobody cares about my music. They want to watch me do my makeup. They want to watch me cook Italian food. They want to watch me pet my cat and that's all private stuff. Right. I want to choose whether I want to share it or not. Whereas my music is meant to be shared.

So I love that. I. The mentality when I was talking to those actors, their response to me was, yeah, it comes with the industry. It's like, they are just victim to the standards of the industry. And my daughter eventually decided it wasn't something that she wanted to be a part of. So she pulled back. So that was the end of that, but I love what you're saying. And I feel like we, this is a really great segue into the whole idea of Bitcoin decentralize the system. So let's dive into that. How did you come across Bitcoin? And what was your first reaction?

Yeah. Uh, well, obviously I've been an advocate for this kind of self sovereignty independence from an artist standpoint for the last 10 years. Since I had that encounter with the label. I was like, something's off, how is a group of men deciding for me? So that was kind of the Genesis of that mentality. But practically how I encounter Bitcoin, to be honest I got into NFTs. Ehterum, blockchain NFTs. A couple of years ago, because I was looking for an alternative way to proliferate my music. Put it on a ledger that I could control and find a community that I could communicate with directly. So that's how I find Etherum and NFTs. I put out almost 10,000 music NFTs and sold and built a community. It's about 10 songs, about a thousand copies for each song. It's a very complex structure, but

You get to decide how many copies of each song you distribute.

And sell them individually. Each copy.

How does that work?

You create with through smart contracts. And I know this is about Bitcoin, so I don't want to like delve too much into Etherum, but yeah. It's kind of what led me to Bitcoin in the end, which, you know, Yeah, smart contracts allow you to create a specific amount of tokens, non fungible tokens that you can link metadata to. Uh, and it can be songs or media or whatever. And you can create as many as you want and make them look however you want, and literally determine your supply, your dilution and your cost. And the properties of this token, and create your economy, your record store. And so I was able to do a few collections, a few albums for total of about 10,000 NFTs with a few different songs. ,art, my dad participated in the art for the design and stuff. So. Um, yeah, that's what I did. And. That I did that for a long time, about a year and a half. And then. About eight months ago. So I'm pretty new, to be honest. But I'm very passionate about it. I heard about Bitcoin. Ordinals. Which. It's kind of the equivalent of NFTs. On Bitcoin. With a few different things about it that makes it even cooler. When they launched back in February, you know, it was like, oh, this is NFTs on, on Bitcoin. Why should I do it on Bitcoin? I can do it on Ethereum. Right. But the, the difference really is that. You can put your art on chain, like your art, your music, whatever can be inscribed on the blockchain and be immutable. You can never change it. So it's going to be preserved forever. Which is not something that is so easy to do on Ethereum because your art lives off chain and you can mutate it, which can be something good. Right. It can follow your path, but. There was something about immutability. Um, security as well, because when you inscribe art on Bitcoin, You're inscribing it on a Satoshi. On a sat which is not coded by anyone. So it's got no security risks. whereas a NFT, a non fungible token is coded by literally a programmer who could put anything into it. So you have to audit that before. So for security reasons is really interesting. So I learned about Bitcoin ordinals shout out to Casey rod armor who created them back then. Uh, actually today is the one-year anniversary of ordinals. First ever ordinal was described December 14th last year. Interesting. Yeah. Super cool. Um, and so I found this and started doing my research, got me into Bitcoin, realized like everything that goes on around it, so I would say art brought me to Bitcoin. And the possibilities that it offers to artists to be not only creatively free, but financially free as well. And in control. So here I am. I have to put a song on Bitcoin. It's living up there. Back in June. I did that.

So help me understand. If you put a song. On a Bitcoin and its living forever on chain. Yes. Is that just a way to secure your copyright? So the other people can't copy it because it doesn't sound like you can create the tokens that you were talking about. Right. So he can sell individual copies. So what is the benefit other than security, a copyright for your song?

Yeah. It's. I mean, some people don't agree with copyright, some people don't believe in copyright. I'm still kind of in the middle. cause in a way I feel like. copyright is, is can be sometimes a way for middlemen to interfere. So, yeah, I've had bad experiences with copyright protection. But the coin does offer that kind of protection. So if you're willing to dox yourself and not be anonymous, you're going to know did that song the first time it appeared on the internet, it came from my wallet. So that is mine. I do have. That's traceable, so provenance, absolutely. That's a big deal. People are experimenting with. With building copyright. I know that within the Bitcoin community. Yeah. Not everyone cares so much about copyright and I understand. So.

Well, the notion that the copyright basically gives you the legal right to pursue someone who's stealing your work. Yeah. But you still need to have the resources to make that chase. So it protects you in a way, if you have the resources to go after violators, but otherwise it's just a stand alone statement, you're just making a statement. So how does that help an artist? other than that you can chase after violators people who steal it.

Well, it can't be censored. It can't be taken down by anyone, which is what decentralization really means for an artist is, you know, at the moment everyone's using Spotify, they have full control over your music. They. Oh, yeah. Spotify, apple music, mostly Spotify, because they're the only company that is fully music centric. Whereas apple, of course has all the products, Amazon as well. Spotify is just music and podcasts. So it's really in their hands. Like everyone's using that platform. To prove their value to other people. Look how many streams I have. Look how many listeners I have. If Spotify were to disappear tomorrow. Yeah. All that will be gone and you would be worth nothing. And your songs have never existed. If, you know what I mean? It's in their hands entirely. Whereas putting a song on Bitcoin. It's not even in your hands anymore, it's in the hands of the superior, massive worldwide thing that we all collaborate and work towards and work for. So you're putting it, it transcends you as an artist. It transcends music, institutions and tech companies. It's just there. And it's up to the people that work on Bitcoin to keep the chain going really. So. Yeah, you are protecting it. For the longest time in the best way possible.

Okay, but in terms of monetization, you can't use it the same way that you're using the NFTs, the way that you've described. Yeah, you can. Yeah, you can tell me about that. Yeah. I'm really confused.

Oh, yeah, it's exactly the same. Right? So basically what you're doing is you are tracing your legacy. You're putting the original, mastered the original copies of your song of your art, whatever on your favorite blockchain. The reason why, uh I heard it from his mouth came up with a concept that ordinals is because you wanted to make an NFTs. He wanted to protect his art on chain, but didn't like, Ehterum found bugs within, within it. So found a way to, categorize Satoshi's in a, in a non fungible way. So number them. To make them non fungible. They're not just like one sat for one set. Now they have an order and you can distinguish them. And, so that, that makes them rare in itself. So you can ma you can sell them, you know, I'm going to sell you. The first manuscript of the song, and I could create 10 copies if I want to on 10 different sets and sell it 10 times. Or, uh, whatever it's like, you're creating. Your vinyl, vinyl record, but it's on Bitcoin.

So, is it like a placeholder? So you've uploaded your song on there. And then after that you can then create the different copies to distribute.

And that's, uh, that's you can do that. you can use the parent child recursion. process. Kind of complex technical. We're not going to get into it. you can do that or you can simply take 10 different sets, right? 10 sets and on each one of them and scribe the same song or 10 different songs or. And then you just put through the transaction, right? Got it. Yeah. Okay, so you end up having, you know, if you want it to do 10,000 NFTs. with 10 different songs and do a thousand for the same song. You can take 10,000 sets, and inscribe them all. with art and music. And

so is it your intention then that every song you create, you would just have limited distribution so that it increases the value of the song?

Yes.

Okay. So only the people who are truly passionate about your music can get a copy of your song. That's for be able to listen to it. Enjoy every day.

Yeah. I mean, people can still listen, obviously, because you can go to the, marketplaces or indexers or whatever, and you can listen, but there's a difference between listening and, and owning. I treat music as art. So you can, you can look at this sculpture that's hanging in here. But that's not going to really mean anything unless you own it. You can enjoy it. Look at it. But you can't own it and have all the benefits that come with owning something. Right. And so I applied the same thought process to music. You can listen as much as you want. But it really doesn't mean anything. You can't stop people from hearing in the internet era. You can't stop people from seeing. Listening, consuming. So owning. Becomes very important.

So, so if I bought a, one of the copies of the music, Then that gives me access to whatever it comes with it. As you mentioned, maybe access to your inner circle. access to you, live events and things like that. Exclusive events.

Yeah. You're collecting my art. Right. So think about if you buy a really expensive piece of art from an artist. Then you also buying it to get into their inner circle, right? Because you want to be close to this artist and. learn their process and have a relationship with them. So it's very similar.

Can you put a smart contract on the song that you saw on the sat? That allows you to collect a portion of the proceeds. If someone were to sell the song and then someone else was yourself, the song.

No, no. Yeah, they don't have smart contracts. Okay. Royalty splits are not a thing. on Bitcoin that way, because we don't have smart contracts that we can. Program that way. But, you know, that's, I feel like the two things like Ethereum and Bitcoin, and that sends for media for art. They serve different purposes. Right. So I wouldn't even exclude the one day I'll have the original master of the song. Preserved stored on Bitcoin. And then, the copies that I sell to a wider audience with royalty splits, whatever. I'm on, I'm on Etherum because it's just where, I can manipulate how I want it based on the situation. Right. I want to split the revenue with my co-writer, whatever I can do it on a theory. It's just kind of more flexible in that sense. Got it. Um, Bitcoin is the most safest way to store and preserve. So, okay. Yeah.

Cool. So you mentioned that you came across. It's a lot. No, no, I I'm so glad that you were explaining it to me because I was really confused and I see benefits on both sides. Just like you said, it depends on your situation where you want to take advantage of. And it's just wonderful that Bitcoin serves a very specific purpose for security. So you mentioned that when you came to the. You came to Bitcoin because of art. And then you started to learn about the ethos of the coin, the philosophy and the freedom aspect of the coin. Tell us a little bit more about that. what did you think, did you know about those aspects of Bitcoin before you came here for the purpose of preserving your music?

I so I'm still learning. So that's my premise. That's why I came here. I'm really like, I want to be part of the community and learning. In, in depth. I want to be involved in counter. Culture. I want to be involved. In different, differently thinking people because I've always been that way. So what I really love about the Bitcoin ethos and the community is that people that don't just sit back and say, yes, master. They ask questions, and they want answers and they find solutions. To the questions that are not answered. So, yeah, that's really what I like about it. And it can be applied to. Finances everyday life art, I've been that way with art and music. And so finding a group of like-minded people. That are analyzing and researching how to. Be better, more independent. that aligns with me, and each one of us has their own reasons, right? Why they're here and what they're coming from. But it doesn't matter. All roads lead to. So ultimately, I will. I live in Nashville, which is music city, and I am not involved at all with the music industry in this city. I can't find the answers I'm looking for there because everyone's just complying with the music industry, the record labels, dominate the city. And it's so cool to me that Nashville is such a growing Bitcoin hub. Because it's that counterculture that's developing. And me as a musician, I can come here and, Be with like-minded people. So.

So are you able to connect to with other musicians who are not Bitcoiners yet and tell them about Bitcoin and what is their response?

It's really hard.

Even coming from this industry where you're exploited constantly

really hard. It's it's almost like the Stockholm syndrome. Situation where you fall in love with your oppressor. Quite literally. Somehow there's this intimidation, like, oh, if I don't comply, then I'm going to burn some opportunities for myself and. I've just been through it too many times where I'm like, oh, any of the opportunities that were given to me by somebody else? Who told me they could help me. Didn't work and I'm better off finding, creating opportunity for myself and. At this point, I speak to a record label people and I quite literally to their face tell them I'm taking your job. We're putting music on my last post on Instagram is I am now fully independent because my music lives on Bitcoin. And I, nobody can take it down. Nobody. Yeah. Nobody not even the CEO of Spotify. And that's independence, but they don't, they don't care that much. It's just sad.

Okay. So you have a Twitter space and you go on there, you have your jams and And you received support from people, the community. Are the musicians that are. jamming with all on board with they are. The counter-culture oh, creating music and, and making a living with music.

Absolutely. Yeah. The majority of them are, some of them are not so radical. Like me. I'm very much a maximalist in that sense. Like I've. I did a panel, at an ordinals event in Miami there now. And I explicitly said I'm done with putting music on Spotify. Like that's it. I don't do it anymore. So I'm very like all in and I'm not looking back. Not every artist is that way. They maybe have one foot in one foot out, which is fine. It's better than not doing it at all. And maybe. In time. They will see the benefits of being on that. I also have to say, it's not easy to be all in because you have to be out of your comfort zone a lot more, I would say, but I'm happy to do the research as much as I can and then report. To my friends and my colleagues and, test it out for them and see. If they can, use it to.

So for a brand new musician who nobody knows hasn't done really anything public, and they want to follow in your footsteps. They want to start on the right foot. Go starting this career, building their business and really living on the art. What would you tell them? What would their first step have to be.

It's complicated because. I would not tell him to follow my steps that, I took 10 years ago because that was bad. it led me here, so it was good, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't wish that upon anybody. So with the technology we have now. I really think that putting your music, building your legacy and your provenance on Bitcoin. Is a great way to start. We also want to be respectful of the chain. Because it is limited real estate that you have, right. You have limited about SATs. So that's another thing a Bitcoin does to you. It helps you think and really reflect. You really want to put this up there because it's, you can't delete it. And you're taking up space for other people and you're raising the fees. Oh, right. But think about it. You know what I mean? Which is amazing also because artists are used to just cranking out songs like burgers. And McDonald's, and, The idea of really thinking and cherishing every piece of art that you put out is long gone. And I feel like that's coming back with Bitcoin because of all these obstacles. Super cool.

I want to ask you about WAVLake because usually when people think. Musicians. Bitcoiners automatically they say go to wave lake because that's a platform where musicians can get paid directly. So similar to what you're saying, in this interview. So what do you think about Wavlake?

Yeah. good question. I'm not on it yet. I. Think we've lake is a great way. To maybe get your music. Randomly discovered. but you're still using a platform, right? So that's, that's something really important, right? When you think about the principles of Bitcoin is two individuals interact directly without the need. have a third party or intermediary that is centralized, right? Bitcoin is decentralized. So yeah. Platform like wave lake, having a founders and, Is somewhat centralized. and so that's something to keep in mind, you are streaming music for free, and if you want, you can send, Monea so really it is it's not centralized around the artist, which is just an option that I want to present to potential musicians and people who are interested in this kind of technology, I'm an activist for alternatives. because what happened in, in the traditional industry is one platform takes them monopoly. And then there's one person every once in a while this says, well, there's alternatives, So I appreciate what wave lake does, that it is helping onboarding musicians to Bitcoin. So that's amazing. And ultimately that's our goal. but I'm also interested in showing that there are different alternatives where the artists can be the platform. I'm my own platform. I have more responsibilities, but also, more decision power. and yeah, so that's really what I, what I think about it. and I think, That's how I go about things. I like to be fully said centralizer on myself. And, like I said, I'm a pretty extreme about this. So not every artist wants to have this kind of burden as well on their shoulders.

Yeah. That's so true. Bitcoin all about peer to peer transaction. And if you have a platform in the middle, even though it facilitates the exposure on both sides, It is still an intermediary and you want to go all in peer to peer. You take on the responsibility of building out your own platform and having full control over your interaction with your fans,

correct yes. When you give power to a third party whoever it is, you are giving up some of your power and the peer to peer fades out a little bit. So it's just something to keep in mind, you know? And it's not always evil. Like, I mean, I use centralized platforms on Ethereum all the time. I do. so I'm not saying it's always, it's bad. I'm just saying it's good to be aware of that and know. I think that, just because something is on a decentralized blockchain than it is decentralized, I always get to be aware.

Yeah, so pros and cons of. All of these different approaches, just becoming aware and knowing the choices you're making consciously, I think is just the key point is to know what you're getting yourself into, what you're getting out of it and what. What you're giving up for it.

Yeah. Just awareness education literacy in general.

So pretend that I have written two songs. And I want to start and I want to build a business around the art that I create. Yup. Step number one, you're saying, make sure your song is good and then consider putting it. On the blockchain

.Yes and I think, putting music on Bitcoin is expensive. So that's, It's definitely expensive and it's going to only get more expensive. So I would definitely recommend to really think about it. But, like I said, I came from Ethereum, there's other blockchains and I w I would recommend to check it out just to. Learn the process. Almost use it as a test net. Before you put your music on Bitcoin because obviously is going to cost you money and it's going to cost the whole community something. So, yeah, make sure you're sure. But you can use it there. And lots of people say, you know, if there was like, almost like a test. Good thing for ed. Yeah, I would agree. I believe in that ecosystem very much because it's very flexible. It allows me to build a community. So I would say start from there. Okay.

so step two start a community, or is that step one?

I would start building a community. First thing. Because,

how do you do that?

Well, okay. Well there's many ways. The way I did it was open up Twitter spaces. And host Twitter spaces every day for two or three hours every day. No matter what. So I love talking. You. You've seen now I'm a chatty person. and I love entertaining. I love playing for people. I love receiving, love for my songs. And I thought I'm just going to do this every day and show up and people appreciated that and started getting involved. And then when I minted my NFTs, Everyone bought it? because she's been giving us so much value and entertainment. And we're going to buy this. And little by little, you know? Yeah, yeah.

So. What would you say to a woman was sitting on the fence about Bitcoin?

I would say definitely take your time to learn. because as we were talking about earlier, it's important, we're pioneering this. I feel. and so. You really have to know how it works. But I would say, I feel like Bitcoin is much more than just the tech coal conversations that, Are usually had perhaps. Meetups or, the main conferences. It can be very tactical. But I find a lot of emotions in it and it does change how I think and how I act as a person, as a woman in my life. I really did find more independence because of it in my everyday life. Change the way I think. So it's okay to approach it in an emotional way. I believe, find some philosophy into it. So

yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much. I really appreciate this chat. I'm sure it cleared up a lot of questions about this. And there are a lot of people out there trying to make something of their art. Self expression I think is so important. And. Just knowing that this is an option. I think it'll be really helpful. So thank you so much for sharing. Thanks for joining us today If the discussion with our guests resonated with you and you would like to dive deeper into the world of Bitcoin, don't miss out on joining the Orange Hatter Women's Reading Club. The meetup link is in the show notes. Also, if there are women in your life whom you think would both enjoy and benefit from learning more about Bitcoin, please share Orange Hatter with them. Until next time, bye!