The music industry is one with a rocky history as far as accessibility and price are concerned. With each passing iteration of music – cassettes, CDs, streaming, etc. – the world of music its fans alike strive for a delicate balance of sales and plays that can be heard by many and generate immense revenue for few. It is for reasons such as this that torrenting platforms such as Napster rose to prominence and there was a shift from purchasing albums to streaming subscriptions where a whole library of music is available to the individual. The next frontier for music, however, is the world of NFTs. For the uninitiated, NFTs are “non-fungible tokens,” digital assets that represent real-world objects like art, music, and videos. Much of the excitement surrounding NFTs is that they are often of a limited run and have unique identifiers delineating one from another.
Enter Daystar Peterson, known professionally as Tory Lanez. The Canadian rapper and singer-songwriter has been a prominent media figure throughout the previous calendar year for his run-in with artist contemporary Megan Thee Stallion in late August of 2020. However, the record label founder is now making headlines with the release of his newest album When It’s Dark, an NFT exclusive featuring 7 unreleased songs. Selling for $1 on its release date of August 10th, supply is, was, and will forever be limited to one million copies. In a matter of minutes, all copies had sold and Tory Lanez was $1,000,000 richer. The demand on its date of release – and subsequently on the resale market – has been so strong that the hosting service E-NFT has crashed on multiple occasions, with some copies selling for over 1000x their purchase price and others currently listed as high as $100,000,000.
On its surface the entrance of music into the NFT space seems to be a win-win for both the artist and consumers. Compared to his album Daystar released only one year ago, sales of When It’s Dark outsold by 964,00 album-equivalent units. For fans of Tory Lanez, their access to never-before-heard music came for the historically low price of $1 which sits well below the standard $1.29 charged by Apple for an individual song. What problems then, if any, arise from a seemingly benevolent music transaction?
As a fan of Tory Lanez’s music myself, I’m disappointed at the fact that I have not heard When It’s Dark’s 7 songs and most likely never will as the album prices on the resale market far surpass what I am willing and able to pay. The market for NFT albums has become just that, a market where investors endlessly buy and sell, hoping to take advantage of consumers in a quest of profit maximization to the detriment of the laymen who just want to listen to music from their favourite artist. Price aside, the limited quantity of albums creates an unfair hierarchy among fans where some have access to an artist’s music while others do not, giving rise to issues of accessibility in the music industry.
None of this is to say that the creation, buying and selling of NFT albums is inherently evil or amoral. On the contrary, I commend Tory Lanez for his innovation as a musical artist and subsequent financial access, and I congratulate the owners of all 1,000,000 When It’s Dark owners who have the opportunity to listen to Tory Lanez music that many of us have not and will never hear. Yet, stemming from my personal frustration, the movement of music into the NFT landscape feels like one of conflict with unreleased music at an affordable price, but not for everyone.