The $BUYBACK Crowdfund

[TL;DR]

This crowdfund is to raise 12 ETH (hard cap of 44 ETH) to enable me to buy-back the rights to 7 of my albums from two record labels, offer $BUYBACK tokens, NFTs and more to contributors, and fund ways to reimagine my 20-year catalog while leveraging it to build community governance and create new works.

Who am I ?

I’m a musician, composer and producer raised between New Zealand and Japan, calling LA home after a decade in the heart of London’s club music community. I’ve been recording, releasing and touring for over 20 years, mostly exploring between jazz and electronic music - a hybridity that I’m proud to have helped define and be an example of through my life’s work. Through deep-dive projects, I explore themes of heritage and cultural connectivity, taking inspiration from the intersection of myth, folklore and cultural history with sci-fi fascinations… ancestral futurism.

Music has been my lifelong love. From starting piano at age 4 with classical lessons, teaching myself pop songs, then falling into jazz and improvisation, the piano was always central. Hearing hip hop changed me on the spot and in high school, I got a synth and drum machine and was trying to emulate what I’d hear on records. From then on I’d go back and forth between wanting to be a ‘serious’ acoustic jazz musician and wanting to make beats. Today, that combination isn’t seen as strange at all - but combining an MPC drum machine with my jazz group in 1999 though? We were exploring brand new musical possibilities, a live fusion of organic musicians with beats technology and sensibility.

If you want to jump into the full story of my journey, here’s a bio installation created by Initiatives of Change where I was inaugural Artist in Residence for La Ceiba Festival 2020.

This music has taken me all over the world - sharing a bill with Inner City and De La Soul main stage at Detroit Electronic Music Festival, turning the street into a full-on party at the Montreal Jazz Festival, playing a tiny club in Aoyama, Tokyo for 7 hours and emerging victorious to daylight... I’m guessing it’s been more than 1,000 shows around the world, but who’s counting ?! I’m truly grateful for all the amazing adventures - and for all that’s still ahead. My catalog includes more than 15 solo albums, numerous EPs, dozens of singles, remixes, productions and collaborations. They’re snapshots of time, documentation of my perspective and experiences.

When it comes to releasing my music, I’ve worked with both major and indies, and been through almost every sort of traditional record deal there is. All along the way, I’ve experienced and witnessed numerous issues with conventional industry systems: when an artist is no longer in their new-release cycle, and the label stops proactively pushing their music; when a track hits a few million plays but the check is inconsequential; when a lifetime of commitment to the craft, creating and contributing to culture still leaves an artist grinding just as hard as when they started. The scenarios and stories are all way too familiar and endlessly cliched. It’s been time for all that to change.

Why crypto ?

Late 2020 (not counting some short-lived crypto purchases in 2017), I jumped down the web3 rabbit-hole and truly haven’t looked back since. With guidance and support from the pioneer Sirsu, I minted Motherland - a homage to my Japanese heritage and ancestors, and possibly the first-ever audiovisual album on the blockchain. Motherland was then followed by a series of 1/1 NFTs on Catalog.

Getting to know the community, creators, collectors and starting to understand the possibilities that blockchain technology offers has inspired me in a totally new way. I’ve loved the welcoming energy of the space, made a crew of web3 friends - most I haven’t met IRL yet, launched a creator club to mentor musicians into web3, joined a team creating a whole new web3 music platform, joined FWB, and even wonder if I’m turning into a bit of a degen sometimes - it’s an inspiring and fun journey of discovery and learning, each and every day. Finding new value in my music at a scale that’s been unprecedented until now, and the entire concept of immutably preserving culture on-chain has me excited to see everything we’re building - for now, for the future, for you, for me - for everyone.

The notion that independent artists now have tooling and resources to create sustainable careers, communities that have value, and can keep on growing without old-industry middlemen (or deals weighed heavily against the artist), is literally nothing short of a revolution.

The Big $BUYBACK

This crowdfund is rooted in the ideas of self-ownership and community governance. I tweeted a thread last October thinking about my catalog while reflecting on how problematic traditional record label deals are. Sirsu’s two-word reply: “FREE MARK” said it all - and put wheels in motion for me to think about how I can change my situation for the better. $BUYBACK is the answer.

Over time, some of my album masters have reverted back to me, but 7 albums I don’t currently control are released on two labels - one of which has licenses with significant years left on them, and the other where I have an unrecouped balance but, with only streaming revenue to fund that, those licenses will continue indefinitely until they’re fully recouped (around a decade at the current rate). Both of these record labels supported the albums when they were released and now, as catalog items that typically get no special attention under existing industry models, I’m motivated to bring them back under my own control and gain the freedom to maneuver without being encumbered by a label. A lifetime of work that I’m ready to house under one roof, use as a springboard to build community (more about that below), and launch my next chapter.

I’m far from the only artist in this predicament - you might be surprised (or not?) how many artists you regularly listen to who can relate all too well to my tale - records caught up in long-term, or even perpetual contracts, with little possibility of change. It’s one of my hopes that this crowdfund inspires others to explore how to reacquire their catalogs and be empowered to move into completely new ways of doing things.