Taryn Southern is First Artist to Release a Tokenized Song

Los Angeles-based pop artist and digital storyteller, Taryn Southern, released her latest album today, entitled “I AM AI.” The album features the track, “New World,” which is the first ever tokenized, collaborative song experiment using Blockchain technology.  A music video for the song is available on her YouTube channel, where she has almost 500K subscribers.

“This song marks the world’s first ever experiment in mass music collaboration and backend ownership via smart contracts,” Southern told Blockchain Beach.  “299 people around the world participated in this song’s creation and will receive backend royalties in Ether to their wallets.  Approximately 75 (individuals) submitted lyrics and were involved in the writing process, and 11 submitted vocals used on the track. As the music industry changes, I’m really excited to see how smart contracts will be used to encourage collaboration, transparency, and financial participation with fans/consumers. I’m super thankful to everyone at Trust Token and all 299 collaborators who joined me in this process.”

As part of the tokenization process, Southern and her collaborators created a trust entity.  Royalty payments will automatically be allocated and paid out via an Ethereum smart contract.  This includes proceeds from digital song sales, streaming music platforms, and movie/TV royalties.  One of the token holders, professional hip-hop artist, Jensen Reed, raps on the track.

In addition, the album is composed entirely using artificial intelligence software, including IBM Watson Beat and Amper.