A recent Recording Academy study found that only 2% of all music producers are women, with only a third of record labels featuring any female talent on their rosters at all. As a staple of Caribbean culture and the music born from it, BACARDI rum and Grammy-winning producer, BOI-1DA, decided to take a stand. Without the support of a label, how do rising women break through?

Teaming up with three rising music producers, BAMBII, DENISE DE’ION, and PERFXN, under the mentorship of Grammy-winning producer, BOI-1DA, BACARDI launched a first-to-market NFT mixtape. A new music distribution model that replaces the traditional record label model with thousands of passionate fans – to champion more women in music production.

By investing in this next generation of beatmakers through the purchase of an NFT, buyers share in the success as the music gains popularity, in the form of shared streaming royalty payments paid through the NFT “smart contract” (a self-executing transaction protocol built into the code on the blockchain). Thus incentivizing them to promote the producer and the music even more.

Working with STEM (a distribution & payments solution for artists), we’re able to track the streaming performance of each track – where it’s played in the world and on which platforms. Using this data, our NFT smart contract then divides up those royalty payouts between the artist and all the consumers who purchased one.

Partnering with the new music NFT marketplace, STURDY.EXCHANGE, and three rising music producers, BACARDI released a collection of animated NFT tracks that included a share of the song’s monthly streaming royalty payments.

Along with their NFT track(s), fans also received an original animated artwork by renown digital Afro-futurist, SERWAH ATTAFUAH, and a downloadable “Fanvestor Kit” complete with posters, stickers, social-ready assets, bios, interviews, photos, and monthly streaming reports – all incentivizing fans to track and boost their song’s success by promoting the artist within their own social circles both online and IRL.

The campaign was seeded through digital platforms with a large web3 following including Reddit, Twitter Spaces, Discord, Clubhouse, and Instagram. 560 NFTs were sold over the course of 10 days.

A total of 560 NFTs were sold in 10 days in 124 different countries, resulting in $115k for the rising producers to fund their future projects, with the potential to earn even more each time the NFTs are re-sold. The campaign has increased artist mentions by 237% and established a connection with 100% positive sentiment with a new generation of fans within the web3 community. The effort has also garnered the brand and artists over 672M media impressions to date with placements in Forbes, The Verge, and Variety, touting it as a promising new revenue model being adopted by other independent artists every day. Even spawning a handful of new startups using the same model (sound.xyz, royal.io). Altogether, the campaign earned the category’s largest share of voice, making BACARDI the most talked about spirits brand in the world, while most importantly, putting more talented women in the spotlight.