Yahoo Finance Snoop Dogg scion Cordell Broadus embraces crypto, NFTs as the future of music
Snoop Dogg once dreamed that his son, Cordell Broadus, would play professional football. But instead of the NFL, the younger Broadus eventually took a liking to another kind of rough and tumble sport: cryptocurrency.
Back in 2017, Broadus was introduced to crypto by now deceased rapper Nipsey Hussle, who urged him to get into digital tokens to buy virtual real estate. He didn’t act right away, but when the crypto market crashed in 2018, his interest was piqued.
Since then, he’s taken on his dad as a client and is looking to shape the metaverse, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and more.
“My dad is actually my client,” Broadus, who just celebrated his 25th birthday, told Yahoo Finance “So it's so amazing to work with him. You know he actually gets to follow my lead for once.”
He called it “a full circle moment, because my dad wanted me to play football and he had dreams of me going to the NFL, but I have something else out there…I stumbled across NFT's and now we can do this journey together as a family business.”
Broadus is the inspiration behind Snoop Dogg’s own foray into crypto and the metaverse. He opened his dad’s eyes to the value of crypto by convincing him to debut his first NFT collection on Crypto.com.
The NFT collection called "A Journey with the Dogg," weaving together the rapper’s memories from his early years, with art inspired by the NFT movement including an original track "NFT." The success of that sale was such a hit it drove Snoop to get into crypto full bore.
The rapper is now developing “Snoopverse,” a virtual world on The Sandbox metaverse platform for which Broadus is also a consultant. Last year, The Sandbox made it available for collectors to purchase land around Snoop’s virtual property.
“But it doesn't stop with buying land,” Broadus explained about the budding metaverse movement.
“You can build whatever business model you want. Honestly, if you want to have an ice cream shop, if you want to have a theme, roller coaster park, you can literally do whatever you want and you can set that business model to create passive income,” he added.
Like other true believers of Web3, Broadus believes the metaverse constitutes the next evolution of the Internet, where corporations no longer take the big piece. Instead, individuals and artists can take more control.
“This space kind of feels like the birth of hip hop,” Broadus told Yahoo Finance. “How everybody [mingled] with each other and just freestyling and making beats, and everything was just fun and new.”
He theorized NFTs and crypto offer similar advantages. “But you don't have to have a fast car, you don't have to be a tough guy. So I think it's just a fair playing ground for everybody to reach success.”
NFTs have grown into a more than $40 billion market, and Broadus expects this year to be even bigger. “Last year, every day there were 50,000 wallets created and I think this year, it may even double or triple.”
On Tuesday, Snoop Dogg is dropping an NFT collection of 10,000 Avatars – called “Doggies” — all inspired by the rapper’s outfits and historic moments. They include his music videos for his hit songs from “Gin and Juice” to “Drop it Like it’s Hot,” and moments when he went viral.
Each digital Snoop is programmatically generated and unique. Snoop is also expected to do concerts in the Snoopverse on Sandbox, including special acts. Broadus explained it would “ take some time to build out, but we're walking towards, I think, a cross-pollinated room where fashion, music, gaming will all compliment each other.”
Broadus and Snoop Dogg are also working with Sotheby’s auction house around NFTs for Snoop Dogg’s record label, Death Row Records, the historic California-based hip-hop label he just purchased. He wants Death Row to be the first NFT music label in the metaverse. Also, Broadus is working with Sotheby’s to auction off archive pieces from the label.
“Music hasn't really entered the space yet and that's something that we want to pioneer,” said Broadus.
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