The problem The Swaraj Projekt solves

The 21st-century music industry value chain is broken. Dominated by intermediaries in the form of labels, the music economy is defined by extremely skewed centralization of:

1. Power - The top 1% of artists account for 94% of streaming royalties
2. Wealth - Artists capturing less than 12% of music industry revenues today
3. Ownership - Music labels acquire rights to retain up to 80% of streaming royalties

Artists today find it challenging to navigate web3 across the decision-making framework, including choice of chain, specifications, drop mechanics, mint strategy, perks & utility. And that's where we come in.

Challenges I ran into

Given we were earlier a purely engineering team, we limited much of our efforts towards solving for the technology stack. However, after meeting Rishi Bradoo, a professional musician with over 10 years of experience, we started digging deeper into the creative process and understanding the nuances of fan building. Having him and his studio on board helped us take an IP-first approach toward producing these music NFTs keeping programmability in mind. The idea is to attribute each and every contributor to the song and help fans participate in the co-creation process, enabling opportunities for open and permissionless world-building.