Grammy-winning musician RAC was one of the first artists to issue a web3 social token in 2020. Upon release, his most dedicated fans received a direct stake in his success along with the ability to contribute meaningfully to his career. Now RAC is pushing this innovation further, teaming up with HIFI Labs to launch racOS, a web-based home linking all $RAC holders. 

A platform that is artist and fan controlled and created, racOS provides a space where token-holders can engage with each other and access a variety of experiences. From the homepage, fans can connect their wallet to verify their $RAC token holdings and unlock several immediate benefits, including exclusive music playlists and a portal to a Decentraland experience for token holders only. The major feature, powered by Coinvise, is a service that enables RAC Patreon subscribers to claim $RAC tokens each month commensurate with their Patreon membership tier. 

$RAC and racOS serve as a model for artist DAOs: how artists can build and own their own platforms. “The term ‘direct-to-fan’ has been overused and under-delivered on for too long; and for the first time in the history of the internet, we’re finally seeing this lofty idea begin to materialize for artists,” says HIFI Labs CEO & Co-founder Joe Barham. “At HIFI Labs, we’re building for a future in which artists – not platforms – own the networks, communities, fan experiences, and relationships that revolve around their artistic vision; and we believe that DAOs offer artists the first true opportunity to build, manage, and collaborate with their fans."

“I’m so excited to unveil the latest update to $RAC,” says RAC.” It’s another chapter in reshaping the creator economy and engaging with my fans in the most direct way without a sea of intermediaries. This is just the beginning. “

When RAC noticed during the pandemic that his audience on Twitch was exploding, the success proved to be another Achilles’ heel for his community. This wasn’t the first platform RAC built a large following on: Starting in 2007, RAC had amassed followers on everything from MySpace to Soundcloud, where he amassed a following of over 5.5m.. Yet, with each new platform, RAC struggled to connect his whole audience. 

To help bridge this gap, RAC announced $RAC in October 2020. $RAC was minted on the Ethereum blockchain as a way of connecting RAC fans independent of any one platform. RAC created a record of fans who had supported him in some way over more than a decade, including music purchasers on Bandcamp, merch customers, Twitch subscribers and Patreon supporters. A program was built to allow these fans to come and collect $RAC, commensurate with the support they provided.

Right away, RAC saw the onboarding of many new people to Ethereum who had never interacted with a blockchain or a crypto wallet before. Holding $RAC tokens became a requisite to join certain channels within the RAC Discord Server. Using the open-source Ethereum tooling now popularly known as “web3,” RAC created a permanent record between him and his most avid fans, more akin to a cookie in your browser than a coin on a blockchain.

At the same time, popular “social clubs'' emerged in the web3 ecosystem. They became known as DAOs, and some act as instigators and investors in promising experiments like $RAC. In 2021, the Ethereum-based community known as The LAO made a contribution to the $RAC community in exchange for an organizational role. Using this contribution, the RAC DAO, the decision-making body of the $RAC platform, leveraged their relationships with the music and tech idea incubator HIFI Labs to build out a new experience for fans.

Called racOS, this new experience is a web-based browser app that will serve as RAC’s main website - but also as another congregating place for $RAC holders. Inspired by a 90s operating system aesthetic, ripe with its own “applications,” racOS is a nod to the endless flexibility of web3 enabled experiences but perhaps even more so - reaffirming this idea that the artist is at the center of all experiences related to them. 

“RAC is showing how tokens allow us to add a new layer to the technology stack of the internet —and this is what web3 is all about,” explains HIFI Lab’s Head of Crypto Jack Spallone. “Future experiences for $RAC holders are only limited by what is built to integrate with them. There is now an entire emerging ecosystem compatible with this layer of the internet, making RAC and the corresponding token a pioneering example of how artists can find durability in the technology they use to connect with their fans going forward.”

About HIFI Labs

HIFI Labs is an artist incubator and creative technology studio on a mission to help musicians grow their careers sustainably and own their success via web3 technology and classic artist development. With a focus on ArtistDAOS, A&R and Web3 utility, HIFI Labs is building tech, tools, and custom systems that empower artists to optimize their fanbase, create their best art, and break through the noise while retaining control of their careers. The overall company vision is that one day, musicians will own their art, control their career, activate their own ideas, and make the decisions that shape their creative identities with direct support from their communities and fans.

What if diving into a festival and jumping from stage to stage was as easy as changing servers? HIFI Labs is exploring the possibility by running a Discord-based edition of Friend Fest on December 15 from 3PM PT / 6PM ET. Together with Zumiez, Endlesss.fm The Auxy Collective, Karaoke Lounge, Karaoke Central and other collaborators, HIFI Labs will make the most of Discord’s new “Stages'' feature to create an audio festival experience that’s fun to navigate and easy to enjoy.

“We’re always trying out new ways to reimagine music and the social, human connections and moments that are created from live events,” says Adrian Ayala, Head of Marketing & Partnerships at HIFI Labs. “This version of Friend Fest will meet many fans where they already are and let them jump directly into a festival experience entirely inside Discord.”

Though Discord festivals may be a brand new concept, they are easy to grasp. Each server will curate a lineup of their own artists, reflecting the spirit of their community. Artists will perform on an audio-only Friend Fest stage using Discord Stages. In addition to the audio, the Zumiez server, curated by Masked Gorilla Records and hosted by Zumiez employees, will have a “Green Room” using Discord’s voice channel feature. There, fans can interact with featured artists in a more intimate environment limited to a total of 25 users. 

Artists include Charly Bliss, 2KBaby, WhoKilledXIX, CMTEN, and more across multiple Discord Servers serving as festival stages. Music fans can get started here (friendfe.st), where they can click on a “stage” and jump right to the correct server.

HIFI Labs has been playing with the concept of decentralized, digital festivals, seeking different ways to encourage interaction and creativity in virtual spaces. Its first edition, featuring artists like Tinashe, Noah Cyrus, and Reggie Watts, used Twitch, Zoom, and Minecraft for performances, but featured its own custom 8-bit backstage hangout room for festival-goers and supported MusiCares. This new Discord edition demonstrates that festival experiences can happen anywhere, and that music connections go far beyond platforms and tech trends.

“We want to open everyone’s eyes to the possibility of leveraging different sites and platforms to expand how and where we see a virtual music festival taking place,” says Taryn Haight, Head of Strategy at HIFI Labs. “There are so many options for performance and innovation outside of the traditional platforms and Friend Fest is here to empower and challenge artists to think outside of that box.”

More info on HIFI Labs HERE

More info on Zumiez HERE

YouTube sensation-turned-art pop powerhouse Poppy has built a career on being unpredictable. From her early viral video fame as an uncanny cultural critic through albums that demolish the lines between bubblegum and industrial metal, Poppy constantly makes colossal moves. 

Now, Poppy is teaming up with HIFI Labs to craft her own 8-bit universe—with the help of fans. 

Available for iOS and Android, new app PoppySphere gives fans a constantly changing world to explore, with dynamic rooms and secrets for them to find as they navigate a realm of Poppy’s own iconoclastic creation. Users can customize their own avatar and text chat as they plumb the depths of Poppy’s virtual space, playing games and making connections with fellow Poppy fans everywhere.

“I am over enjoyed to be launching my very own Metaverse!” says Poppy. “A fully customizable virtual space to hang out and talk with the poppysphere one on one. The possibilities are endless so, make yourself at home.” 

Upon launch, fans will have a chance to actively shape the PoppySphere, working alongside Poppy to build and customize this new interactive world. Fans can submit music for different rooms, games for the arcade, featured wall art to provide decor, or even design whole rooms. Featured content might even earn creators exclusive gifts.

PoppySphere comes in the wake of new album Flux, the focus of the first-ever Listening Party held on Roblox. The GRAMMY nominee played and chatted alongside the platform’s millions of users as her music became part of the soundscape for a full weekend. Now, PoppySphere players can immerse themselves in Poppy’s one-of-a-kind aesthetic anytime they want.

For HIFI Labs, assembling radical new tools for artists and keeping them in the driver’s seat as they reach out to their audiences is a matter of principle. “We're really interested in the true direct-to-fan connection,” says CEO Joe Barham. “We love working with artists who view the cutting edge as an opportunity and our focus is on helping artists build their own platforms to create the best possible relationship with fans.”

By helping artists get the expertise they need, HIFI Labs helps them focus on using what makes them unique and how to parlay that into sustainable work. “We get to know them, we ask them how they’re doing, what their team looks like, and what their goals and plans are,” explains Head of Strategy Taryn Haight. “Then we can see what’s out there, what’s been done already, and take those findings, platforms, and tools to use them in a new way that works specifically for that particular artist.”

It’s that focus on customization and innovation that makes collaborations through HIFI Labs so exciting. Poised to become the world’s first video game-based fanclub, PoppySphere is a perfect example of HIFI’s outside-the-box thinking.

PoppySphere is available for download on iOS and Android devices starting November 18.

There’s no real roadmap for navigating the music industry. From mental health to complicated innovations in technology, there are always new paths to explore. Until now, there’s been little support to help musicians and producers overcome these challenges as they try to translate creative skills into a viable career.

“So much information on how to navigate the business is closely guarded by gatekeepers,” says Taryn Haight, Head of Strategy for HIFI Labs. “We want to give artists access to tools to help grow their own careers and get past mental blocks to create their best art.”

To break down those barriers, HIFI Labs is launching EQ, a new community-based website where artists can have open conversations and build solutions collectively around real issues they encounter. EQ connects artists to resources to help them thrive based on themes and findings that come up as they work with clients in their Artist Lab. An ever-growing set of original materials and outside media yield valuable insights from professionals of all levels. A companion Discord server gives users a place to discuss what they’ve learned and help teach each other.

“We want the site to be a living, breathing, evolving conversation,” Haight continues. “The community can contribute with articles, ideas and questions, which will all feed back into the content we post on the EQ website as conversation starters.”

Community manager Crystal Desai emphasizes that the site is a starting point, one both flexible and interactive. “Whatever musicians want, it should be for them. Some people are more visual or creative in other ways. Different people process feelings in different ways. If you make videos or write poetry, you can contribute in that way, too.”

With its first edition, EQ addresses the topic of resilience. Developed with the help of Dr. Taryn Marie Stejskal, whose Resilience Leadership Institute counts Fortune 500 company executives and Hollywood stars alike among its clients, the interviews, apps, articles, podcasts, and playlists featured in this issue offer artists strategies for building a more resilient lifestyle in an industry that often seems unsustainable. It promises to be the first of many crucial subjects EQ tackles with real repercussions for those pursuing a creative lifestyle.

Ultimately, HIFI sees the EQ community as one major step in a much-needed overhaul of how the mainstream music industry treats the artists it’s built on. “EQ is about trying to inspire a more transparent music industry,” says CEO Joe Barham. “This is an empathetic, open-source community for knowledge sharing.” 

Desai agrees.  “The EQ community is a place where artists can learn and feel heard. Musicians often go in cold to the business, and it’s challenging. It’s healthier for artists to work together, and EQ gives them a way to find each other.”

EQ launches November 9

At the 2011 Coachella Festival, Interpol debuted their dynamic collaboration with filmmaker David Lynch: an overlay of Lynch’s frantic short film “I Touch a Red Button Man” with the group’s ferocious 2010 single “Lights.” The result, a captivating balance of unnerving and sublime, was a singular experience for the lucky few in attendance.

Now, fans have the chance to own an exclusive piece of this work, recorded specifically for a limited series of eight NFTs. The project takes new shape for the present day as Interpol enlists the teams at HIFI Labs to conceptualize and build radical new tools for artist development. In the Lynch X Interpol project, newly recorded versions of “Lights” join Lynch’s engrossing animations to both commemorate and add new power to their famed original effort.

“The new performances are stripped-down renditions featuring [Interpol lead guitarist] Daniel Kessler on piano,” says frontman Paul Banks. In fact, these more acoustic takes may be Interpol at their most poignant, digging deep to take each clip to new artistic heights.

Eager to include the fans in unique ways, Lynch X Interpol also offers opportunities for collaboration. “In the spirit of fandom,” Banks continues, “we are glad to reveal that one of the eight NFTs will go to fans—for free.” Fans will be able to add their personal creative touch to one of the NFTs in the 3D gallery and one lucky participant will take home the collaborative NFT.

The NFT project was conceptualized with and made possible by HIFI Labs, where industry professionals develop new ways for artists to stay on the cutting edge of music and technology trends. “Artists usually have great vision, but oftentimes, I don’t think they know how many options are available to them,” says CEO Joe Barham. “HIFI labs can build from scratch, picking any tool on the planet to optimize what the artist wants to do.” HIFI Labs’ VFX artist Adam Graetz helped to unite the unique creations by Lynch and Interpol, all available via SuperRare. Their Dev team, led by Piérre Reimertz, created the online, evergreen universe to experience and interact with the 3D creations with Metaverse ideation support from Infinite Reality.

“What makes us so excited about this release is it memorializes the collaboration between David Lynch and Interpol,” adds Jack Spallone, Head of Crypto & Product at HIFI Labs. “Using Ethereum, these NFTs can live in eternity as artefacts of cinematic and musical history. Just as David Lynch’s career helped push the boundaries of film and even fiction, it is now extending into the permanent universe of blockchain.”

HIFI’s expertise in building custom technology has been essential in honoring the mutual creative respect Interpol and Lynch have for one another. “To be frank, Interpol is crazy about David Lynch, and we are over the moon to have ever been able to align our name with his in an artistic forum,” continues Banks. “Humbly, we believe that as digital artifacts go, these are worthy of preservation in the infinite digital realm.”

Just as important to all parties as the quality of the art is being conscientious about its execution. “We are pleased to enter the NFT space in as ethical a manner as we could, in conjunction with Aerial,” Banks continues, pointing to the platform’s tools for offsetting carbon footprints as key in the decision to use them for this project. “We hope to bring an artful and interactive approach to this launch.”

Auctions for Lynch X Interpol begin October 26 at lynchxinterpol.tv/.

STATIC IMAGE / ANIMATED GIF / PROMO VIDEO