A couple of weeks ago, we applied to Seed Club, a prestigious accelerator program for community-based web3 initiatives. During the application process, a member of Seed Club brought up a very pertinent question: ”Culture matters and plays a role in the global/local dynamic. What works in Mexico may not work in the US. So, I was wondering what is Swaraj’s role in this "facilitation" of culture. How are you enabling both the artists and the global audience to learn from each other?”

While we set out to respond to this question briefly, we realized that we had a lot to say! So here’s a short essay on why we think we can build a culture that transcends geography.

Curated collaboration

We started with artists who were closer to us. Our early steps brought together artists who probably wouldn’t have collaborated with each other before. For example, our collection has a song written and performed by a Hindustani classical artist, Avanti Patel on a drill beat produced by Urmi. Here we saw an artist with a very niche sound perform on a beat that would appeal to global tastes. These were two cultures, with different musical languages, building something together with a common cause.

During the creation of our collection, we learned that collaboration, in the nascent space of web3, is remarkably different. It is an underestimated vehicle for borderless creation. Blockchains form a backbone for people to create collaboratively with fewer limitations and, fewer bordered and permissioned structures in the way of collaborative work. Culture cares not about borders once the channels to transcend them exist.

Co-creation

At Swaraj, we believe Artists and Patrons are the two critical pillars of a music ecosystem. Artists create ideas, from zero to one. Patrons cement these ideas in the fabric of pop culture. Together, as a community, they can take these ideas from 1 to infinity by exploring multi-media, multi-lingual, and multi-cultural interpretations.

Patrons deserve to see the upside for the work they do in growing an artist’s ideas. An on-chain digital goods economy allows for this.

When artists provide a certain degree of co-creative control to their superfans, ideas evolve. If an artist community, consists of participants from numerous countries, you will inevitably see interpretations, creative processes, and versions of the ‘original’ that blend culture. A blend that can make something foreign feel familiar, and open doors to new possibilities.

We believe that these two approaches, collaboration, and co-creation, will allow ideas to be multi-cultural.

The Indian context

India is a naturally multi-cultural country and English is its Lingua Franca. It’s the second largest English-speaking country in the world (125 million people) second to the United States.

The Internet decentralized the location of information, and social media decentralized the publishing of it. With English being the written language of the internet, this allowed for rapid consumption of global ideas in the Indian sub-continent.

The impact of the internet on the sub-continent has been dramatic.

First, it allowed for an unprecedented absorption of global pop culture. Familiarity with the internet’s language allowed for bridging the cultural gaps that existed before. Ideas were easily accepted, but their impact has gone further than affecting consumption patterns.

It has affected the creation of everything from technology to media. Today, it is increasingly common for animation and VFX work for global projects to be handled in India (for example, Avengers Infinity War). Hip-hop has had a tremendous impact on music creation in the country, affecting the very foundations of creative culture, with artists starting to break into international markets (the artist Divine recently signed with Nas’ label ‘Mass Appeal’ despite primarily performing in Hindi). Content creation has taken the country by storm, with over 60% of Gen Z looking to build careers around it.

With the world's largest youth population, the quantity and quality of engineering and media creation talent, and English as a primary language, global collaboration is its next step.

The Swaraj approach

These ideas are at the heart of what we are doing at Swaraj.

Currently, we are building a strong foundation of artists and technologists, who have an appetite for global collaboration. Our next step is to create IP and tools that resonate with borderless communities and provide opportunities for collaboration and co-creation.

The term, “permissionless” isn’t just a feature of the technology, but a core principle. No matter how niche an idea is, it can find its 10,000 superfans on a borderless internet. An internet that allows communities to build small, sustainable economies around unimaginable ideas. Economies that can justify permissionless creativity.

Double-entry bookkeeping provided the economic conditions necessary for the Renaissance period. We agree that crypto can do the same. We could be entering a period of unprecedented ideation, and at Swaraj, we want to play our part in the growth of ideas that reside beyond the horizon of our imaginations, through the global collaboration of technologists and artists.

A couple of weeks ago, we applied to Seed Club, a prestigious accelerator program for community-based web3 initiatives. During the application process, a member of Seed Club brought up a very pertinent question: ”Culture matters and plays a role in the global/local dynamic. What works in Mexico may not work in the US. So, I was wondering what is Swaraj’s role in this "facilitation" of culture. How are you enabling both the artists and the global audience to learn from each other?”

While we set out to respond to this question briefly, we realized that we had a lot to say! So here’s a short essay on why we think we can build a culture that transcends geography.

Curated collaboration

We started with artists who were closer to us. Our early steps brought together artists who probably wouldn’t have collaborated with each other before. For example, our collection has a song written and performed by a Hindustani classical artist, Avanti Patel on a drill beat produced by Urmi. Here we saw an artist with a very niche sound perform on a beat that would appeal to global tastes. These were two cultures, with different musical languages, building something together with a common cause.

During the creation of our collection, we learned that collaboration, in the nascent space of web3, is remarkably different. It is an underestimated vehicle for borderless creation. Blockchains form a backbone for people to create collaboratively with fewer limitations and, fewer bordered and permissioned structures in the way of collaborative work. Culture cares not about borders once the channels to transcend them exist.

Co-creation

At Swaraj, we believe Artists and Patrons are the two critical pillars of a music ecosystem. Artists create ideas, from zero to one. Patrons cement these ideas in the fabric of pop culture. Together, as a community, they can take these ideas from 1 to infinity by exploring multi-media, multi-lingual, and multi-cultural interpretations.

Patrons deserve to see the upside for the work they do in growing an artist’s ideas. An on-chain digital goods economy allows for this.

When artists provide a certain degree of co-creative control to their superfans, ideas evolve. If an artist community, consists of participants from numerous countries, you will inevitably see interpretations, creative processes, and versions of the ‘original’ that blend culture. A blend that can make something foreign feel familiar, and open doors to new possibilities.

We believe that these two approaches, collaboration, and co-creation, will allow ideas to be multi-cultural.

The Indian context

India is a naturally multi-cultural country and English is its Lingua Franca. It’s the second largest English-speaking country in the world (125 million people) second to the United States.

The Internet decentralized the location of information, and social media decentralized the publishing of it. With English being the written language of the internet, this allowed for rapid consumption of global ideas in the Indian sub-continent.

The impact of the internet on the sub-continent has been dramatic.

First, it allowed for an unprecedented absorption of global pop culture. Familiarity with the internet’s language allowed for bridging the cultural gaps that existed before. Ideas were easily accepted, but their impact has gone further than affecting consumption patterns.

It has affected the creation of everything from technology to media. Today, it is increasingly common for animation and VFX work for global projects to be handled in India (for example, Avengers Infinity War). Hip-hop has had a tremendous impact on music creation in the country, affecting the very foundations of creative culture, with artists starting to break into international markets (the artist Divine recently signed with Nas’ label ‘Mass Appeal’ despite primarily performing in Hindi). Content creation has taken the country by storm, with over 60% of Gen Z looking to build careers around it.

With the world's largest youth population, the quantity and quality of engineering and media creation talent, and English as a primary language, global collaboration is its next step.

The Swaraj approach

These ideas are at the heart of what we are doing at Swaraj.

Currently, we are building a strong foundation of artists and technologists, who have an appetite for global collaboration. Our next step is to create IP and tools that resonate with borderless communities and provide opportunities for collaboration and co-creation.

The term, “permissionless” isn’t just a feature of the technology, but a core principle. No matter how niche an idea is, it can find its 10,000 superfans on a borderless internet. An internet that allows communities to build small, sustainable economies around unimaginable ideas. Economies that can justify permissionless creativity.

Double-entry bookkeeping provided the economic conditions necessary for the Renaissance period. We agree that crypto can do the same. We could be entering a period of unprecedented ideation, and at Swaraj, we want to play our part in the growth of ideas that reside beyond the horizon of our imaginations, through the global collaboration of technologists and artists.