Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda’s Sold Out Mixtape-NFT Set ‘ZIGGURATS’
Though the 5,000 unique NFTs that were released are already sold out, the ZIGGURATS’ six-minute and 44-second-long mixtape is still accessible to the public in the set’s gallery and on Shinoda’s Youtube Channel.
By Nath Cajuday
“I’ve described it to some people as a ‘song that’s not a song’. But it’s also an EP that’s not an EP, an NFT that’s not an NFT, and an art project that’s more than just a picture.”
This is the statement of Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda as he released earlier this month a what is described to be the “first ever generative mixtape NFT (non-fungible token) set” dubbed as “ZIGGURATS” that is already sold out, a matter of minutes after the set was released.
Though the 5,000 unique NFTs that were released are already sold out, the ZIGGURATS’ six-minute and 44-second-long mixtape is still accessible to the public in the set’s gallery and on Shinoda’s Youtube Channel.
The four-track mixtape consists of the songs “Genius Bar,” “Richard Bachman,” “Cheat Codes,” and “CTRL C CTRL V.”
“Thankfully, I’ve created a lot of material this past few years. I started sifting through all the beats and sketches I’ve made, looking for connections between them,” said Shinoda.
“Similar tempos, similar keys, cool parts. All the best bits got poured into one long session. The track ended up feeling like some of the ’90s hip hop I grew up on, so I decided to start writing some verses.”
Talking about the NFTs that served as cover art, the musician claimed that the unique NFTs he released were designed by himself.
“So I designed this release to be an easy ‘first NFT.’ There are multiple blockchains, this release is on Tezos. I chose Tezos because it’s a green blockchain, with one of the lowest carbon footprints of any popular chain. We’ve all bought an app we ‘own,’ like Microsoft Word, or a music plugin, or an item in a game. But those items are unlimited in number. The difference here is that the NFT is a limited edition, highlighting the value of authenticity, rarity, and originality,” Shinoda added.
Moreover, the collection can be filtered through different categories such as by drum track, head, melody, number of traits, and many more.
“The outcome is a six-and-a-half-minute musical project, made of layers. The vocals are the same on each output, but the music and cover art are unique. I’m calling it a generative mixtape,” the musician concluded.
Last November 24th, Shinoda tweeted about ZIGGURATS’s introduction and announced the minting and streaming dates.
The Public Mint happened last December 2nd and the Streaming was last December 3rd.
Shinoda gave away one NFT on his Twitch where he also celebrated that all of the NFTs had sold out in just minutes.
This is not the first time the musician released an NFT, he became the very first major label artist to release a single, “Happy Endings” with Iann Dior and Upsahl last February and sold his very first piece of crypto art entitled “One Hundreth Stream” for $30,000.00 and dedicated it to the “Michael K Shinoda Endowed Scholarship.”
This article is published on BitPinas: Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda’s Sold Out Mixtape-NFT Set ‘ZIGGURATS’
