Wha d Block 9 – The Future NFTs in the Caribbean

While NFTs may have entered mainstream consciousness in an ‘I can’t believe that artwork NFT sold for so much money!’ kinda vibe, more everyday artists and musicians are embracing the technology.

Previously, we mentioned that local artist Rodell Warner is already producing NFTs, but regionally, he’s in a minority. With thousands of Caribbean digital and innovative traditional artists, though, it’s just a matter of time before NFTs are here in a big way.

With that in mind, here are some ways NFTs can benefit us:

Getting More “Legit”
NFTs will allow digital artists to finally have a method for easily monetizing their art. This has the immediate effect of gaining income from their work but there’s also a possible bonus of raising the value/perception of their work, from ‘digital image’ to ‘unique, digitally produced artwork’.

The current popular format is in the form of digital music releases, but these don’t give fans that feeling of ownership that CDs do (remember those?). 💿 NFTs can help bridge this gap by introducing unique elements, direct artist-to-fan engagement and the ability for fans to win auctioned one-off releases.

“We Ting” – once and for all
The attempt at registering “J’Ouvert Rum” recently opened a bag of discussion on cultural appropriation. One of the questions frequently asked was “How can we protect our cultural elements?” NFTs can help some: ‘tokenising’ cultural elements like a 3D render of the Midnight Robber or a recording of the winning Panorama arrangement creates an official ‘owner’ 🛢️ of said material. This means that for anyone to use them, permission must be granted. The intersection of trademark/copyright and NFTs needs further exploration but promises to be intriguing.

Those Fete Tickets, Revisited
Scalpers: Some people think your party “eh sayin nuttin!” without them. Others hate them. Should you be a promoter in the latter category, NFTs are your best friend. NFT tickets 🎫 will be able to prevent resale and scalping of tickets, creation and sale of fake tickets and even allow your tickets to be tracked. Unfortunately they won’t keep brown dogs away.

These are just a few advantages of NFTs. As the technology merges with our culture, there’ll be many more exciting cases of implementation , until the day we may wonder what we ever did before NFTs.

Special thanks to Mark Pereira, for his valuable insight into Blockchain and NFTs.