Meet Spottie WiFi, the CryptoPunk Rapper Who Made $192,000 in 60 Seconds

 This Peace Is From ALEXANDER FRUCHTER

Featured Article By: ALEXANDER FRUCHTER

About the author: Alexander Fruchter, aka DJ RTC, is the co-founder of Chicago-based record label Closed Sessions. During the blog era, he ran the influential music and culture blog rubyhornet.com. 

The start of Mig Mora’s rap career sounds like that of a typical artist who emerged during the late 2000s and early 2010s. Faced with a crumbling music business model reliant on physical distribution, and a new model built on a digital distribution system not quite established, Mora, like so many of his peers, released music for free through blogs, file-sharing sites, and the almighty SoundCloud. There wasn’t much money to be made, but there was an active community of bloggers, artists, and fans, and Mora was keen on that. On December 12, 2012, Mora released his first solo album, Music For The End of The World. It premiered on rubyhornet.com—a fact he actually reminded me about.
 
The project got some props in the local Chicago scene, which was paired with the growth of his fledgling streetwear brand, City of Win. The brand released a compilation mixtape of its own as a lead-up to Mora’s solo debut. The compilation, W1n Vol. 1, featured Chicago and blog era favorites such as YP, Scheme, Really Doe, BBU, and hometown hero Sharkula. While from afar it may have seemed like things were on the up and up, the drain of releasing music for free and operating beyond his core competencies on a streetwear brand left Mora, a law school graduate, feeling like he was hustling backwards.

Like many of his peers, Mora got a job, got good at it, moved to Brooklyn, and figured his music career was over. That was until he purchased CryptoPunk 5528, now known as the world’s best (and only) CryptoPunk rapper, Spottie WiFi. Through NFTs, Mora found new inspiration, a second chance at a music career, an exciting community, and for the first time ever, he made significant money off his music.
 
Mora grew up in Rockford, IL, a blue-collar factory town just far enough not to be a suburb of Chicago. He started writing raps in high school, continued in college, and upon graduating, Mora moved to Chicago and entered law school at Loyola University. He linked up with two hometown friends—producer Stefan Clark and emcee Hollywood—and the trio called themselves The Bridge. As Mora says, “I was running around rapping when I was supposed to be studying.”
 
The Bridge had a good run for an underground indie act. They opened for touring artists like Talib Kweli, Nas, Snoop and T.I., but like many groups that start to gain traction, egos and the pressure got in the way. Following The Bridge, Mora joined a cover band and performed at large venues across the Midwest and at music festivals. The band started writing original songs and Mora did enough to garner a publishing deal. It turned out to be a terrible one, locking him down for multiple major label placements. “I thought this is how you sign a record deal, you sign a publishing deal first,” he admits. “Of course, the record deal never happened. That band fell apart.”
 
After the cover band, Mora brushed himself off for the aforementioned solo album, Music For The End of The World. The album was a conceptual project that mixed science fiction and politics and took a somewhat comedic approach towards impending doom. “That was a big moment for me,” he says with an exhale. “The album was well reviewed. I got some love from Rubyhornet. I got some love from [Vocalo Radio] and NPR. And then, I think I was just sort of exhausted. I said so much on that album,” he recounts. “After that, I sort of had writer’s block for a decade. I did write a little bit, but it just never turned into anything. Basically, nine years went by and I hadn’t really made anything. And then I was inspired by this world of NFTs.”
 
If you haven’t been following along, cryptocurrency has been having a banner year after a bad crash in 2017 and a slow rebuild with plenty of detractors. The crypto landscape has expanded far beyond Bitcoin, and the blockchain is being used for more than just digital currency. People create, bid on, purchase, sell, and trade pretty much anything that can be traded. Digital basketball cards, digital artwork, and digital music sales are growing in NFT (non-fungible token) form and beginning to break through to the mainstream. It was just announced that Nas, Katy Perry, and Jason Derulo were amongst the investors in Audius, a blockchain streaming service.

Mora was an early adopter of cryptocurrency, and went through the highs and the lows without selling or giving up on what he believes is the future of currency, and now, music distribution. When he contacted me out of the blue in late August to tell me about his new path as Spottie WiFi, the NFT music community that was supporting him, and the further possibilities, it all made sense. When I spoke to him again in the early evening hours of September 5, his excitement for this new world became even more clear.
 
“It’s hard for me to overstate how cool this is in the world of NFTs,” Mig Mora tells me from his current home, just outside Miami, Florida. “My voice might be in and out because I’ve been yelling all day.”
 
Mora had just been booked for a performance—well, Spottie had been booked for a performance. The booker was the Bored Ape Yacht Club, a collection of 10,000 NFT ape characters that hang out at a digital Swampland Yacht Club and throw parties on their virtual riverboat casino. The Apes burst onto the NFT art scene in April of 2021, offering collectors the chance to own a minted Ape NFT as well as any associated IP rights. In doing so, Bored Ape Yacht Club instantly created brand ambassadors and franchisees. One collector launched Bored Ape Streetwear, and another created a Bored Ape IPA at his brewery. On September 9, the Bored Ape Yacht Club ended a Sotheby’s Auction featuring just over 100 Bored Ape NFTs. The Auction closed at around $24M, hence the reason for their party at the BAYC Riverboat Casino.
 
Mora is a proud member of the Bored Ape community, as well as others such as the Gutter Cat Gang, and of course, the CryptoPunks. According to Mora, Spottie WiFi went from CryptoPunk president to CryptoPunk king in a matter of months. Spottie, named so because of his spots, is part Puff Daddy and part crypto evangelist. It’s the attitude of the Shiny Suit Era of rap that Mora grew up on in Rockford, mixed with a nerdist enthusiasm for this new digital world. “I loved the shiny suits, I loved Puff Daddy spitting champagne in the camera. There was a rock star vibe that I related to more than other genres.”
 
On August 18, Mig and his producer Stefan Clark released a seven-song album. Limited to 2,000 copies, each EP purchase came with a mystery mint NFT. The purchaser also instantly obtained sync rights to the NFT’s master recording, allowing them to use their song in a commercial, film, or television show, and keep the profits. Each NFT holder will also get a vinyl copy of the album. Mora explains exactly what he did in the interview below, but the punchline is that the project sold out in under 60 seconds, and netted Mora over $190,000. Not too bad for an artist who gave up on music almost a decade ago.

What happened first, you started to get into the world of NFTs and that got you going creatively to make music again? Or did you want to make music again and then search for an NFT to do it with?
NFTs came first. I got really into crypto in late 2017, which was the last big crash. Bitcoin was going crazy, doing crazy numbers. I bought in like a dummy right when it was about to crash. I put in more than I was prepared to lose. I put in too much money, it crashed but I just stuck with it. I had a friend who told me, “You don’t lose any money until you sell.” So, I never sold it. I kept buying more in 2018, 2019, and then fast forward to January of this year, the crypto market was doing well and I was up. I was under water with this investment that I made for years, and now I was seeing profit.

And then I start hearing about this thing called NBA Top Shot [NFT Basketball Cards]. I started collecting those in January. I ended up reconnecting with an old friend who I met working with ad agencies. He was really into NBA Top Shot and he had a friend who was also really into CryptoPunks. They helped me learn all about the CryptoPunks. He took me through the CryptoPunk site, showed me the punks still for sale, the attributes you could sort by—different attributes are rarer than others.
 
After a few weeks in February of 2021 I decided, “If I believe in this technology and CryptoPunks have historical value, they’re one of the leading things you can collect in this thing—then I should just do it.” I had no concept of Spottie or music, doing anything with it. But I started shopping for a CryptoPunk. What I found interesting was the spots that are on Spottie’s face. Out of 10,000 CryptoPunks, there are only 124 that have spots. That’s super rare. But people sleep on the spots because they think it’s ugly. They think it’s an unattractive trait and they don’t want that as their Twitter profile picture. They don’t want that to represent them as an avatar, but I saw it as a value. It’s cheaper than the other traits that are similarly rare, so I bought this CryptoPunk. At the time it was 27 ETH, and that was almost exactly $40,000. That was a big investment for me, but I was just seeing it as an asset. My crypto is finally in profit and this is a way to diversify and be on the cutting edge of art and crypto. 

As I got more into the scene, I would see my friend who introduced me to the CryptoPunks and other people in the CryptoPunk world, they’re often anonymous online. You have no idea who they are, but they’re building these online personas behind their CryptoPunks, behind their profile picture or avatar. People follow them and want to hear what they have to say just because they have the clout from this little jpeg. They’re an early adopter, a thought leader. I thought that’s really interesting and I thought I can take it a step further. Rather than just being Mig and being anonymous, speaking in my voice anonymously, I can embody my CryptoPunk and give it a backstory, make it a full-fledged character. The way that I can bring it to life the most is through music. At some point the name Spottie WiFi came to me.
 
What I purchased was CryptoPunk number 5528. That was it. The name hit me. I instantly knew, that’s the name right there! I knew that if I could get Stefan Clark [Mig’s former producer] on board, I could do this. He was helping me at this time, doing all the sound work and design for another Crypto project I was doing. I said, “I have a crazy idea for you.” We talked on Google Hangouts and I shared my screen and was just like, “This is a CryptoPunk.” I explained what an NFT was and I told him that I spent this amount of money on it. The crazy idea is that I want to make him a rapper.
 
Part of what sold me to purchase this was Mark Cuban. Mark Cuban made a rap song about CryptoPunks. It’s super goofy, but it’s Mark Cuban rapping about how CryptoPunks are priceless, how they’re the rookie card of NFTs. I played this for Stefan and I made my case:  “I bought one, and I have this idea. This is what it looks like. And the name is Spottie WiFi.” And he just instantly got it. I thought I was gonna have to twist his arm or convince him. He was like, “No, I get it. I love it. I’ve been waiting for one of my friends to approach me with something that will inspire me creatively and I think this is it.” We came up with a partnership agreement and he and I together are the brand of Spottie WiFi. I’m just the voice.
 
How would you describe Spottie WiFi?
He’s an underdog. He resents the fact that he was overlooked because of his spots. He’s trying to make everybody aware that what was perceived as his greatest weakness or liability is actually his greatest strength. He has a little bit of a chip on his shoulder. A bit of a Napoleon complex. You’ll see him typing in all caps all the time on Twitter. He loves to say that he’s “not always right, but he’s always real.” He might be a little reactionary at times, he’s had a couple little Twitter spats with a couple different entities.

At the end of the day, it’s really all about having fun. That’s what Spottie’s all about. He definitely has an ego and has bravado, but he’s really just about having fun and exploring the fluidity between the virtual world and the real world and how that’s gonna play out over the next several years.
 
First you acquire this NFT and then you turned it into a Twitter profile? Did you display this CryptoPunk as your Avatar, and did other people know this is the dude that bought CryptoPunk 5528? Did that build a community before Spottie WiFi became a rapper?
That’s right. That did happen a little bit. I made him my profile picture for my personal Twitter for a while. I was co-hosting a YouTube show and a Twitch show called NFT stories, so occasionally I used him as my Avatar, things like that. So, me, myself as Mig, I did make some relationships and there are some people in the community that know it’s me. But it was only a few weeks after I bought it that I wanted that separation of church and state and make him his own entity. It was pretty short-lived that I was really associating my personal Twitter and online identity with the CryptoPunk. Very soon after I completely separated it. I would say very few people know, but it is also not hard to find out it’s me. It’s pretty easy if somebody was curious.

 
You mentioned this blend between virtual and real world. In the music, he’s very self-aware that he’s a CryptoPunk. What kind of beliefs are you able to put in the music, or ideas and concepts between those two worlds? Is there any of how you see the world and what Crypto currency can do? Is that injected into Spottie at all?
In some ways. In terms of that underdog mindset, that’s something that I think most people can relate to. Spottie embodies that in a sense. I’m reminded of the Muhammad Ali quote, “I am the greatest. I said that before I knew I was.” That is Spottie. Spottie will tell you! A couple months ago Spottie was saying he was the president of the CryptoPunks. Now he’s the king of the CryptoPunks. He’ll be the first one to let you know that he made history.
 
A lot of it mirrors my personal experiences with crypto. I had a lot of people, a lot of smart people, a lot of intelligent people, who thought I was just a dumbass for buying into Bitcoin, watching it crash, and then buying more. A lot of doubters, a lot of people making wise cracks and things like that. Spottie is my outlet to talk shit and kind of just swing some elbows without all the personal ramifications.
 
I know you were on the fence about keeping yourself a secret but figured out anyone could look you up. Is that a tough part of this? Spottie is the character and you’re the voice, have you thought about how to balance that?
Yeah, I guess. There are times where it is tough to keep the two separate and think about, “What should Spottie say in this moment?” There’ve been a couple times where I was on a Twitter rant and I got a text from Stefan, “Ay, are you sure we need to go scorched earth on this right now?” And then I have to check myself. It’s cool to be combative once in a while but maybe I need to tone it down, maybe I need to delete some tweets. That has happened on one or two occasions. So that’s where it can be tough to manage my personal impulses and what is really, truly Spottie? What’s gonna keep his fans engaged? Especially now, because I have collectors. 

I have 700 people that have collected my NFTs. The average collector owns three of them. My average collector spent $300 because they love Spottie. It’s no longer about me and what I want to say, what is my impulse at the moment. It’s really about how I can make it painfully obvious that they are the smartest people in the world of NFT collecting, and they are bar none the smartest people in understanding the future of music distribution? For me to do that, for me to reward them and give them that recognition, I need to check my own identity and my own personality once in a while.

More from This Article Here https://amp.www.complex.com/pigeons-and-planes/cryptopunk-rapper-nft-spottie-wifi?fbclid=IwAR0HVxH2r0ueGf10zVz3_BRjFahR2Kl02gR0jieiybIpPeZlRpcxpwaVOoo