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RARE PEPES on fire: https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2021/08/31/rare-pepe-steeped-in-bitcoin-history-fetches-500k-on-nft-market-opensea/

rarepepewallet.com since 2016 on Bitcoin. DYOR

I started experimenting with playform.io and their Ai/GAN applications, or assists, in 2021. I've released a few of these pieces as an NFT on SuperRare, and one on Raretoshi but mostly I've been using HEN or hicetnunc.xyz to release most of these works as NFTs. I've always enjoyed the weirdness and psychedelic feeling that happens with these works and the unimaginable outcomes that are possible. Creating GAN art make me put more of a curator hat on, as you have to sift through thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of images and then select the ones you want to properly morph, gif, and manipulate. It is a real different process than just creating from your mind. You are collaborating with a software system. I often times add music to the pieces and have been working on tempo matching more in the pieces, to bring it all together better.

The first time I used GAN in my art was actually a collab with Emoji Nakamoto in April 2018. We released CANT SMOKE A BITCOIN on SuperRare.com (one of the first SR releases.) You probably can't afford the NFT right now but the limited digital display is available on my site. Only 21 made.

The more recent releases I have been doing have experimented with morphing rare pepes, vaporwave aesthetics, and japanese cover art. I've also done some stuff using my collection of Avastars and a data set of honey badgers. You can check out (and even buy) a 1/1 song I did with Willie Waze combining Avastars called STYLES UPON STYLES. The song uses some manual scratch drumming with Waze going crazy per usual.

Look out for more work on hicetnunc soon, you can book go direct to my page by using hic.link/scrilla.

I recently had the good fortune of dropping "Money Badger" in the second wave of the new Async.art programmable music pieces using Ethereum. The drop featured 5 songs from Mike Shinoda, pak, Lee Gaito, Richie & Matthew Hawtin, Beats Antique and myself. I put together 1 layer of 3 different music pieces, 1 layer of 3 different programmed drums & a layer of vocals from 4 different emcees. The rappers are Willie Waze on "Rug Pull," Kane Mayfield on "Crypnology," & Born Unique & Kaimbr on "Proof Of Work." The layers are all available for sale and the owner of the layer chooses which state it inputs into the master track. In addition, you're able to mint a "blank" NFT and record the master output of the desired state you want, as soon as it is made available byt the layer owners.

There ends up being 27 different possibilities of final music, and also 27 different artworks. Each state of music has a corresponding state of art. For instance, the honey badger changes its head and chain depending on who's rapping. The drum machine switches between an MPC2000XL, SP-404 and a DR-550 depending on which drum layer is picked. The music features one track that is derived from the Bitcoin blockchain. Bitcoin Audio, aka D, is known for his ability to find melodies by using the merkle roots and hashes and use a midi synth to get a melody (he explains it better than me) from the Bitcoin blockchain. So we took block 673782 and I chopped parts of it up and we were able to actually incorporate a "bit" of Bitcoin into the artwork and music. The music track changes trigger the triangles and background to change colors, with the Bitcoin logo prominently featured in the layer featuring that music. Shoutout to Mister Wise for helping with that music track as well, and for his overall mix engineer work on the individual tracks. It's a different beast to tackle when you have to mix something that won't be mastered but needs to all sound good changing and co-existing with one another.

Sophie Sturdevant does a real good job breaking it all down here.

The whole concept of programmable music and art is wild. The gamification of owning the layers can be far and wide. It will be interesting to see how this new way of creating will play out. Some cool points of programmable music are the fans can interact with the artist in ways they couldn't before, the art and music is a living and changing piece, the the gamification of quick minting, holding layers hostage, and much more, is just some thing I'm looking forward to seeing play out with all of the releases.

On May 27, 2021, I kicked off my first live 24 hour auction, with no reserve price, for my SOUND MONEY Collector Edition Set of a Hand-crafted, gold-framed record, 5 custom 7" clear vinyl records and an NFT, "Sound Money reDux." The auction took place on the Bitcoin Lightning- powered Scarce.city auction site. I created a promo video and got it out that morning, then proceeded to chat with Chris, the co-owner of the site, on a live stream to kick the auction off. You can still watch the interview and chat here. 

I created the Sound Money album over the course of 5-6 months from Fall of 2019 until late winter 2020. I dropped the album in April of 2020 and have kept finding new ways to keep pushing it out to the masses to spread the Bitcoin gospel. The latest piece is a culmination of my hard work and I decided to handcraft and build the vinyl and framed record, to add the proof of work ethos to my collection. I went record digging in Florida and secured some old vinyl jackets, this was not an easy task- most vinyl jackets have holes in them. I then, spray panted them black and ordered custom 7" stickers of the Sound Money front and back images. I placed the stickers on to make new sleeves, then I got custom lathes cut of each record on the album (front and back) and put the records in a repurposed 45 record box I found at a thrift store. All of the records have 10 custom art pieces as hubs on the vinyl. The gold frame was created by spray painting a Missy Elliot record gold, printing and cutting out card stock label for the center of the record and then gluing the record to a couplw 1 inch foam mounts to give the record a hovering effect. The details of the record were printed on a card stock paper and glued in the same manner as the record. I then went and custom matted the record with 1 inch thick artwork from the Sound Money cover and wrapped it around the piece and framed it in an acrylic glass, gold frame I ordered form the frame store. The NFT was minted on raretoshi, a new Liquid sidechain focusing on Bitcoin art.

25 Bids came in and the winning bidder was FFMAD! 

Look out for the 100 edition Sound Money LP dropping. Each numbered and the first 21 have custom designed album covers.

NEW MUSIC

Rare Scrilla Records Presents

"Genesis 1:27" Rome Streetz & ANKHLEJOHN

Album streaming everywhere now.

The album is ten tracks long, has no features, and is fully produced by Chops and myself. The album came together super easy and I whipped up the artwork to make the whole experience have a psychadelic vibe. We recorded the album during the Great Plandemic of 2020 in DC and NY.  We've dropped 2 videos thus far, for "Vyrus Life," and "Stovetop Serenade" and we've gotten great reviews thus far, here's a few looks on okayplayer, reddit, and hiphopgoldenage.

If you pre-ordered the album on bandcamp by June 1, 2021 then you received an email explaining how to claim your FREE NFT- a proof of purchase NFT- showing your support of the album early on. This is an experiment with gifting and claiming NFTs using indie music. Most people probably get turned off to seeing 3-9 figure NFTs and this is a way to give a free joint that can be viewed and traded on HEN. I chose the HEN (hicetnun.xyz) to drop the piece because the market has been strong there and it was super cheap to mint, around 5 cents each.

All unclaimed NFTs will be burned August 10, 2021 or shortly thereafter.

Be on the lookout for the vinyl drop coming this summer!

Rome Streetz x FARMABEATS x Rare Scrilla

THIS IS A RARE 1/1 AUDIO-REACTIVE NFT AND RARE 1/1 7" 45RPM CLEAR VINYL, THAT PLAYS THE VIDEO ON THE VINYL WITH AUGMENTED REALITY. 

CHECK THE AUGMENTED REALITY SPICE HERE: https://www.instagram.com/p/CJtmStcBB0g/

ENJOY THIS HISTORIC DROP!

HIP-HOP ON THE BLOCKCHIAN