VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Run DMC Co-Founder Darryl McDaniels On How Crypto Can Help Musicians

Cryptocurrency can empower creatives in the music industry.

At least legendary Run DMC rapper Darryl McDaniels thinks so.

He made an appearance at a crypto event in partnership with blockchain platform Algorand to release a new song on the blockchain called “A Million Scars.”

uInterview founder Erik Meers caught up with him at an event at SXSW in Austin, Texas, to find out how he got into cryptocurrency and why he thinks it will reshape the music industry.

“George Howard (digital music pioneer and Algorand’s Arts adviser) who is a technologist – he approached me about giving the artists, the creatives, the full power of the full experience of the creation,” he said. “We decided to start with music, with something that’s called ‘the song owns itself.’ You don’t have a record company or middleman. You have a community of people – the creatives, the people who listen, the people that buy the music, the people that want the music, the people that want to make their own music – the style, the clothes, the vibe, the mindset, the vision of the community of people that have the purpose for which the creation was created in the first place.”

McDaniels’ own experience in the industry fuels his promotion of crypto in the arts today.

“Record labels don’t have the best interests of the artists or the creation,” he said. “They’re there for one thing: to sell the record, and they don’t care about anything else. I thought about this when I got here today. I probably only had about 20 meetings around my creation. The first introduction, trying to get signed to the label, a couple of meetings about press and PR and what video and all of that, but then the whole life of my creation is in their hands. We can use the blockchain metaverse example so that it empowers the creator to have transparency.”

The iconic rapper noted that he thinks the next step is allowing crypto to transcend music into other forms of creation.

“Music is just one form of art,” McDaniels said. “The first thing is music succeeds when politics and religion fail. Music is the universal language that connects sound, fashion, art, everything. Doing what Algorand is doing, we could do this with music, we could do this with art, we could do this with content, we could do this with books. It’s the song that owns itself. The show owns itself. The possibilities are endless. Now, the power is allowing everything that you create and everything is connected to be a part of the experience. Our greatness is based on experience.”

Watch the full interview for more insight above.