Time flies ⏰
In 2017 I helped publish the first book on blockchain for music.
In 2018 I released my first EP of original music as an independent artist.
I spent the following years educating myself on the emerging creator economy.
Exactly two years ago on February 18th, 2021 I minted my first music NFT. It was a lo-fi beat called “Afterglow” that I pulled from my vault to mint as a 1/1 on Rarible.
https://twitter.com/alecdalel/status/1363288551421526019?s=20
https://rarible.com/token/0x60f80121c31a0d46b5279700f9df786054aa5ee5:146534?tab=overview
I didn’t mint Afterglow with the intention of selling it or even promoting it. In fact, I would not formally kick off my web3 artist journey until much later.
I like to learn by doing, and minting my own NFT felt like a necessary step for me to wrap my heard around the technology.
On this particular day, music was probably not my sole focus. I was deep in the process of learning to code and developing my understanding of the tech that powered this emerging ecosystem (shout out to Zora).
https://twitter.com/alecdalel/status/1362276248026816512?s=20
It wasn’t long before I fell deep into the rabbit hole 🕳️
Two weeks later on March 5th, I collected my first music NFT: a 1/1 record by artist Supa Bwe on Zora (Catalog launched four days later) called THUNDERDOME.
A month after that, I became a founding member of BeetsDAO: a music NFT collector DAO that would go on to work with some of the best in music, most notably for the launch of Snoop Dogg’s 4/20/2021 collection.
Since then, I have supported over 150 musicians as an independent collector on Sound, Catalog, Decent and Zora.
I am grateful for the opportunity to directly support so many creators in web3.
https://twitter.com/alecdalel/status/1625972470778847232?s=20
After years of collecting & building community, I am excited to double down on my personal artist journey as AL3C.
I don’t think I could have landed on the name AL3C if not for web3. Early last year I attempted to mint the ENS address alec.eth but it was already taken. I thought al3c.eth was a strong enough replacement, and it grew on me from there.
AL3C debuted with “NOT4ME” in December to an instant sellout on sound.xyz 🌊
https://www.sound.xyz/al3c/not4me
Since then I have released two more sold out collections on Sound which are available to listen & collect.
Earlier this week, I minted my 4th: an open edition on Sound for 0.01 ETH. Por Tu Barrio is an acoustic-driven, hip-hop & cumbia inspired Spanglish heartbreak song featuring heybela and produced by Pete Rango. Available to mint until noon EST on 2/21!
For years much of my favorite music has combined English and Spanish. The representation of Latin music in web3 is not indicative of Latin music’s impact in the traditional music industry. As the web3 music space grows I am excited to see more music produced across languages, cultures and styles.
https://www.sound.xyz/al3c/por-tu-barrio
Another area of focus for me at the moment is web3 social, particularly Lens Protocol.
I see the potential in social protocols like Lens to empower the next generation of creators to build their communities in a healthier and potentially more sustainable way than traditional routes have allowed.
https://twitter.com/alecdalel/status/1626625115436744708
I was an early adopter of YouTube in 2008. Most recently, I built an audience of 10,000+ subscribers by sharing weekly acoustic covers and guitar lessons of my favorite songs, some of which contained both Spanish and English.
This year, I am focusing my community-building efforts on Lens.
I will be sharing new content on Lenstube and YouTube twice a week.
On Fridays I share acoustic covers, and I also post weekly “Sunday Solos”. Once a month I share covers of my favorite web3 songs in AL3C Acoustic Sessions.
https://mirror.xyz/dalel.eth/bba9N0M1IW0lFa38JUf9ty8AYkRLeh_omCqjQ5DoeYc
Follow me @ vibing.lens to stay up to date, and if you’ve collected anything from me you’re invited to vibe with us in the collectors chat where I share demos & early alpha!
https://guild.xyz/al3c-collectors
Here’s to another 5 years of web3 music 🥂