Been around the blockchain

Josh Katz has come a long way from fetching tuna sandwiches for Clive Davis in the Nineties. In 2017 — after two decades of hopping around the music industry, including starting his own background-music company, El Media, and selling it for a pretty penny — Katz took a chance and dove into the then-niche realm of cryptocurrency. He founded YellowHeart, a blockchain-based company that wants to build a more direct relationship between artists and fans.

This March, YellowHeart helped Kings of Leon become the first rock band to release a new album as a non-fungible token (NFT), a kind of digital safe that can house creative works such as exclusive tracks, event access, and other rare collectible items.

NFT buyers become sole owners of these works, which give artists royalties even in resale, and can’t be replicated like T-shirts.

“Art is sacred,” Katz says. “We ideate the token drop, figuring out what that looks like and what the story is.” Kings’ drop drew in $2 million in sales, $500,000 of which the band donated to charity. More broadly, it opened the floodgates on a conversation about how blockchains and NFTs could be useful to the music industry.

Katz has become a go-to guru for those questions, which many music execs are asking for the first time this year. The Kings’ drop showed just how versatile NFT offerings can be: Tokens could be redeemed for special-edition vinyl, for instance, or unlock “golden ticket” perks like front-row seats for life, backstage lounge access, and a personal driver to every show. It was an “extreme example to prove a point,” Katz says.

Besides juggling a horde of artist inquiries, Katz is now putting the finishing touches on YellowHeart’s own “Discord meets iTunes” marketplace, which he hopes to unveil soon.