A Tribe Called Quest Auctioned Song Royalties as NFT for $84,765

Pioneering Hip-Hop Group, A Tribe Called Quest auctioned off an NFT representing rights to receive song royalties from the band’s first five albums. The winning bid at Royalty Exchange closed for 40.191 ETH or around $84,765

How Song Royalties can be offered as an NFT

The profit-bearing NFT dubbed as NFT Plus represents 1.5% of the song royalties originally accorded to the artists. The NFT holder will earn from commercial activities involving the first five albums. For example, sale, streaming, radio playback, digital downloads and song placements via TV, film or commercials. According to Royal Exchange, the percentage of the past 12 months of royalties equates to $6,752.

The starting price at Royal Exchange was listed at $35,000 and a man named Stephen F. bid 40.91 ETH to snatch the NFT Plus. Now Stephen holds an NFT that can continue generating revenue for years because of the financial rights attached to it. Moreover, the listing notes that “Opportunities to earn from pioneering musicians don’t come around often.” 

Royalty exchange specializes in buying and selling song royalties. It recently auctioned off royalties to rapper-comedian Lil Dicky’s 2015 track. The winning bid on that was 9.209 ETH so the tribe’s NFT Plus is a milestone for the exchange. The NFT holders receive their share of the song royalties collected in ETHER.

The band is often touted as the pioneers of alternative Hip Hop. Thus, 30 years after their first album was released, they remain to be commercially viable. The NFT Plus will draw income from the group’s 1990 debut Album People Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rythm. Succeeding second to fifth albums are also part of the list: The Low-End Theory, Midnight Marauders, Beats, Rhymes and Life, and The Love Movement.