1:12Kamal HubbardOkay.
1:12Maceo WhatleyFriends with Benefits conference last month out in California.
1:16Kamal HubbardOkay.
1:17Maceo WhatleyAnd NFT NYC, you know, but a lot of those spaces are predominantly white. So definitely great to be around, you know, Black folks and be able to hear where our minds are at. So you can find allies, you can find value-aligned people. But, you know, it’s not a lot of people that have regard for me and my community and my circumstances, you know, in just like an informed way. Right.
1:35Kamal HubbardRight.
1:35Maceo WhatleyAnd so it’s cool to, you know, meet people from different backgrounds and, you know, be sure that you’re finding those value-aligned people and, you know, able to share knowledge and play positive some games. But it’s also, you know, important to think about how you’re giving back to your community, how you’re contributing, how you build in with your community. And, you know, I just want to make sure my folks are in this space.
1:51Kamal HubbardYeah. No, 100%.
1:52Maceo WhatleyThey feel like they have a space.
1:53Kamal HubbardYeah, 100%. That’s That’s, you know, why I wrote my book, DeFi for the Diaspora, and, you know, why I’m passionate about this technology. Right. So what brought you to blockchain, Web3?
2:09Maceo WhatleySo I think I first heard about blockchain in middle school or late middle school, early high school. I graduated high school or middle school in 2014. And I think that the movie Dope was my first time seeing Bitcoin, like, on screen in any capacity. And I think I heard about it before that, but I think I heard about like the dark web when I was doing like computer science stuff in middle school. And then in high school, I was like, oh, I can mine Bitcoin on my laptop, trying to do that. This doodoo little HP I had. And then in college, my roommate, he was up like $60K on NFTs, trading PFPs like doodles and stuff like that.
2:43Kamal HubbardWow.
2:43Maceo WhatleyAnd I was working as a busser making next to minimum wage. So I was like, what labor economy is he in? He’s not even working. And so then he told me to get an ENS domain. I bought wethemniggas.eth. That’s my podcast, my brand.
2:55Kamal HubbardOkay.
2:55Maceo WhatleyOkay. $8,000. They did their airdrop. And then I was like, oh, this is house money. And I’m about to become a crypto bro. This is where I’m going to work. They’re going to know my name. I don’t know how it works, but I’m going to figure out how it works because I want this kind of money for clicking buttons forever.
3:07Kamal HubbardRight, right, right. No, hey, I know the feeling.
3:10Maceo Whatley2 years later, here I am.
3:12Kamal HubbardHere you are.
3:14Maceo WhatleyWelcome.
3:14Kamal HubbardWell, welcome to another edition of Crypto with Kamal. And I’m glad to have you here, Maceo. I really like the energy you bring, obviously, not just to this conference, but to the space in general. And What are you looking to do, you know, in the next 2, 3 years, you know, short to medium range where we have a sense of where Web3 might be?
3:39Maceo WhatleyWhat am I looking to do? I mean, I’m really just looking to bring more, like, voices that are historically marginalized into the conversation around what is Web3. And, like, I’m wearing the Gitcoin sweatshirt today, and they’re really all about, you know, how can we fund public goods? And I think public goods are failing, you know, poor and under-resourced communities the most. And so I’m really in the world of, you know, how can we take this and make it a faucet for you know, the flourishing of communities. You talk about the roads came from concrete, you know, how can we get rid of the concrete and, you know, create, you know, plentiful, plentiful, plentiful, you know, bountiful, beautiful Black spaces and homes, you know?
4:12Kamal HubbardRight.
4:12Maceo WhatleyAnd so that’s really my commitment is to bring this knowledge and this power and this technology into the lives of people who can be thinking about, you know, how can this benefit, uplift, and empower communities who are historically marginalized, Black communities, Indigenous communities, communities in Latin America, Spanish-speaking communities, like really, you know, people that look like me and that I know I see in my communities.
4:31Kamal HubbardRight, right.
4:33Maceo WhatleyAnd I’m looking at doing that through the world of music and media specifically. Like, I’m a rapper myself. I started my podcast to network with other producers and rappers. I’m thinking about, you know, how can we play positive some games? And so now I’m really active in the music NFT space and thinking about, you know, how can I bring new creatives of color into that space? And how can these creatives of color be like the next Dope? Like Dope was for me, a touchpoint, culturally relevant. Oh, that’s how they use it. You know, how can -- this is how we use it as creatives. How can I, you know, write that narrative and make sure that’s the proof of concept for people? So it’s not all about finance and price go up or down. It’s like you can get paid, you can find customers, you can own your relationship to your patrons and your consumer and your fans with this technology. And I think for creatives, that’s what’s groundbreaking. And I wanna make sure that Black creatives know that they can own their platform with this technology.
5:17Kamal HubbardYeah, absolutely. You know, it’s interesting ’cause I don’t -- I wouldn’t say I had a similar way into crypto, but, you know, I was just fascinated by it because I was doing research on it. And it wasn’t so much a thing of, oh, I need this because I want to get rich.
5:38Maceo WhatleyYeah.
5:38Kamal HubbardI saw it as a way for our community to leverage the technology. So it’s never been a thing for me like, oh, hey, I want to get rich off crypto, right? I want more of us to be in this space, be Just like you, a creator, an innovator, and can actually use it to get paid and not be simply a consumer. So I don’t know, do you -- maybe you could speak to that a little bit more? Like, how do you see the promise of Web3 being a little bit more substantial than it has been with kind of like Crypto 1.0, 2.0?
6:19Maceo WhatleyWhen you say crypto 1.0, 2.0, what are you making reference to?
6:23Kamal HubbardWell, definitely Bitcoin, um, and, you know, maybe altcoins and ICOs, the first round of ICOs.
6:31Maceo WhatleyYeah, so I mean, I feel like ICOs were definitely before I got into crypto, right? But I think, uh, like, what makes sense to me about Bitcoin is that it’s a new infrastructure for payments and for finance that’s not owned by one singular entity like the Federal Reserve, you know, where they get to make choices about how much my my income is worth, but my income doesn’t go up, but the dollars go down.
6:49Kamal HubbardRight.
6:49Maceo WhatleyAnd so it’s like, you know, how do you transition out of that space? And then with Ethereum, which is what I take you to be saying is crypto 2.0 or blockchain 2.0, is like, this is okay, now we have distributed ledgers that can help run software. And so we can have applications which operate in that same public, public, uh, public good domain as this monetary infrastructure. And I guess in this third iteration, I’m really thinking about, you know, how can communities, um, own their relationships to the community members? Um, how can people play positive-sum games with this infrastructure? Um, and you know, how How can we start to think about, you know, how does Web3 integrate into our local community and just like more day-to-day ways? Like, that’s really what I think about, you know. I know folks I met at ETHDenver who were helping local businesses in Austin set up their ability to take payments. Or out in Oakland, there’s the Oak Project, and they’re thinking about how can they create, uh, what is it, like, uh, uh, what’s the word, uh, people all make money. What’s it like? Andrew Yang, he’s a big wag. Not wag to me, but like a universal income.
7:41Kamal HubbardOh yeah.
7:42Maceo WhatleyUniversal basic income, you know. So thinking about how do you establish those kinds of tools in this space? And so I think about, you know, how can you drive value into this space that people can start to reinvest it in ways that they think make sense to actually uplift their community?
7:54Kamal HubbardRight.
7:54Maceo WhatleyAnd so that’s, I guess, where I see things going. And I’m excited to participate in that space and to help people understand what their role is in this space. I think it’s hard to, especially as a person of color, feel like you can find the resources, right, the communities to answer your questions and just like the position to act like you can make a difference. There’s a lot of imposter syndrome in every industry. Yeah.
8:14Kamal HubbardSo, you know, I mean, very true. Very true. So tell me about your podcast and, you know, what led you to create your podcast?
8:27Maceo WhatleyYeah.
8:28Kamal HubbardAnd then there’s a Web3 component to your podcast. So explain the Web3 component of it.
8:35Maceo WhatleyYeah, absolutely.
8:36Kamal HubbardAnd I mean, I don’t know, it’s very interesting, and I’m going to be tuning in very much in the near future. Oh, man, I appreciate that.
8:45Maceo Whatleythe love. I’m definitely gonna be tuning into Crypto with Kamal as well, seeing what you’re about and the, like, historically and moving forward. So definitely excited to support you. But yeah, in terms of my project, so I started rapping, I guess, the end of 2021, right before the -- right before the pandemic. No, end of the pandemic. So I guess end of 2020. And I was like, okay, but I want to be a musician. I’m in college. It’s not what I’m in college for. I’m studying psychology and philosophy.
9:07Kamal HubbardOkay.
9:07Maceo WhatleyUm, and I was like, okay, like, how can I -- if I want to go into music, start to build a platform in that space, start to build inroads into that space. And so I was like, okay, my podcast, We Them Niggas, will be focused on building, you know, for other creatives like myself that are Black and brown and thinking about, okay, how can I interview producers, engineers, start to help them expand their audience? Exactly. They drive hip-hop culture right now. My roommate, who I mentioned, got me into crypto and I was like, oh, I’m looking at Bankless, but I don’t see any Black journalism about this space.
9:07Maceo WhatleyWhy am I not in this space doing this work? How can I start to make this relevant? You know, so that’s really what drove me. Really start doing my research on the DeFi space, the DAOs, Olympus DAO. Like, what is it? They had the green one where they’re like talking about carbon credits and Klima DAO. Yeah, Klima DAO. And so I got really interested. Klima, Klima. I don’t know. But what they do is what they do. And I think what they do is really important because now you see institutions that are selling carbon credits or having to buy carbon credits, having to buy them at a higher premium because me, who is disenfranchised while you’re doing it in the first place.
10:06Kamal HubbardRight.
10:07Maceo WhatleyTo say, I’m gonna buy this and sell it to you.
10:08Kamal HubbardRight.
10:09Maceo WhatleyUm, so I thought that was super dope and starting to think about, you know, how can I educate more people on these opportunities to benefit from the people that disenfranchise you, or the opportunities to disrupt those who disenfranchise us? And so that’s really what compelled me to really double down on Web3 and learn about this space. And I was honestly not too finance savvy myself, and I’m still not. I really won’t -- I will say that I’m not a trader. I’m more just focused on how can I add value and keep adding value and start to generate, you know, an audience which drives value back to me because I’m here and putting in the work.
10:09Maceo WhatleyAnd at this point, I’m really thinking, okay, the music industry, so many unhappy artists. How is Web3 going to disrupt this industry? I hear about how it’s disrupting finance, how it’s disrupting the public goods ecosystem, the nonprofit industrial complex. I’m like, okay, but like, what about creatives? And so I started looking into like, what are the platforms? You see Audius. I saw Sound.xyz. I saw Catalog. So I did research for this organization called Watered Music. They were a music and tech org. They went through Seed Club. Seed Club is a consumer-facing accelerator. in the Web3 space. And I was like, okay, so I can see how music is shifting with this technology.
10:09Maceo WhatleyI was doing user interviews with people who were collecting music NFTs, the consumers. And I said, okay, so it’s about being part of the artist’s journey. It’s about helping artists, you know, actually have a month to create as opposed to 12 hours in a month, you know, because it’s after their 9-to-5. Um, and so that’s really where I am now. I have my first patrons this month. I’m able to work 20 hours a week and pay myself, you know, to work on this project, to be here, you know, to be in DC. I don’t live here. I have to get here and I have to not be at work so I could be here.
11:33Kamal HubbardRight.
11:33Maceo WhatleyAnd so, you know, having that space to invest in myself and double down on my community It’s huge. And so after seeing that space, I was like, okay, I see where Web3 music is at. It’s still people, one person or one group of people owning the platform, but they’re actually artists who are owning their relationship to their audience because now they have NFTs and they can see who those people are. Whereas on Spotify, you can’t see who your top 15% listeners are. I don’t know who you are. I couldn’t email you now, even though Spotify has all that data.
11:58Kamal HubbardRight.
11:58Maceo WhatleyAnd so I’m really excited about that space and helping artists, especially artists of color around the world, understand how they can be a part of this space where they can own their platform, as I mentioned before. And that’s That’s exactly what I mean, owning their relationship one by one with fans who care and are following them and who see them as leaders in their lives. Like, I look up to some rappers like they are people who helped me develop my opinions about masculinity and about being a young Black man in America.
12:21Kamal HubbardYeah.
12:22Maceo WhatleyYou know, so I think a lot about identity, social identity. It’s called We Them Niggas. And so what is it to be a nigga? What is that construct? You know, that’s my background in philosophy, thinking about social constructs, you know. But what is it to be other things? I spent some time earlier this year in Jerusalem visiting my friend who’s an Orthodox Jew studying at yeshiva. He seems like -- I mean, the crypto. And so it’s like, what’s his world like? You know, what’s his -- what are his concerns? his politics. I’m really trying to break down these differences so that we can actually take on really meaningful allyship instead of performative allyship, which is so prevalent right now in the modern day.
12:50Kamal HubbardYeah, yeah. And I mean, even though, you know, we talked about going to different conferences, seeing people who look different from us, we’re still brought together by this technology.
13:02Maceo WhatleyAnd I think that’s, you know, at the end of the day, the good thing.
13:05Kamal HubbardAnd, you know, it’s a good way to just remove all the politics and all the other BS aside and really come together around the technology. And like you said, for the common good.
13:15Maceo WhatleyYeah, yeah.
13:16Kamal HubbardThat is changing, unfortunately, due to a lot of the traditional financial players who are coming into the space. How that will change in the future, we have yet to see. But, you know, I think that’s going to be the next fight, is, hey, are we gonna continue to have this peer-to-peer relationships, not even financial transactions. Are we going to have this technology to bring people together, like you said, for the common good? Or is it just going to serve the same greed factors as before? You know, because if it’s that, then, you know, um, I don’t know, I’m not as enthusiastic as I used to be about this, right?
14:01Maceo WhatleyYeah.
14:02Kamal HubbardUh, it takes guys like you who are fighting the good fight and asking the right questions, right? From a philosophical perspective, from a psychological perspective, you know. And so, uh, I think that’s important. So that also being said, can you let people know how to find you out there, how to find your podcast, and, uh, anything else you want to share with folks?
14:25Maceo WhatleyYeah, and I guess there’s one more thing to say. Like you said, like the politics can all be removed. And I think that’s great, but I think if you’re really saying, you know, wag me, we’re all going to make it, what does it mean for all of us to make it? I think so many of us have a different idea of what it means to make it, what it means to have success, right? Um, and so I think it’s important to not mute the politics completely, but really start to take an active interest in that stuff. But, you know, when you’re working, we’re competing for resources, you don’t have time to be really interested in everybody else’s life and their problems, right?
14:49Kamal HubbardRight.
14:49Maceo WhatleyBecause you got your own problems and they’re not going away tomorrow, next year. Like, they’re still gonna be there. You’re gonna have kids, you’re gonna have to worry about them and their problems. You know, you’re going to be old, then you got your own problems that are different than they were 10 years ago. You know, and so I’m really interested, you know, how do we build for everybody? And I think that really means talking to everybody and getting a sense of where everybody’s at. And I see this as a way to finance my own doing that research and learning, you know, how do we actually build a future for all of us?
14:49Maceo WhatleyBut where you can find me, I’m on Twitter @Maceo_Watley, M-A-C-E-O-W-H-A-T-L-E-Y. I’m on Instagram @Maceo_D_Langston, Langston like Langston Hughes. I’m on Twitter, the official We Them Niggas Twitter is Uh, We Them in Media, um, @WeThemNiggas is right there. If you look up We Them Niggas, you’ll see me on Spotify. Anybody listening to podcasts, look up We Them Niggas, you’ll see me on YouTube. You can look up, uh, the We Them Foundation, you know, thinking about how we can be philanthropic in the long term, um, and make sure the artists do own their platforms. You know, even if you come on our podcast, you can own that content.
14:49Maceo WhatleyYou can do whatever you want with that content. I’m not interested in owning you, your ideas, or your IP. So come work. Let’s play positive some games. And thanks for tuning in to Crypto with Kamal. And Learning about me. Thanks for having me.
15:54Kamal HubbardWell, you know what? There is one question I forgot to ask you previously. So if a musician is out there and they’re listening and they’re like, hey, you know what? I wanna go the independent route and I’m a Web3 enthusiast, but I really don’t know where to start with the music NFTs. How would you guide them to getting more information to kind of help them in that search?
16:17Maceo WhatleyWell, so I’ve, I’ve interviewed a couple artists. Artist, his name is Jed XO. He’s based in Lagos, Nigeria. Black Dave. He’s a huge, huge face in that culture. Definitely been there for a long time. I interviewed him. It’s always based in North or South Carolina. I’m not going to specify because I’m not here right now off the top of my head. But I think both those interviews are huge, a great place to start because you learn about their journeys into this space, how they’re succeeding, how they’re failing, and what their takes are on the space as it’s emerging. So I would say following them on Twitter.
16:17Maceo WhatleyBlack Dave is Black Dave on Twitter. Jed XO is Jed XO on Twitter. Tuning into my podcast. We have a Discord community as well. It’s in our Linktree, so you could jump right into our Discord, jump in the conversation. I’m happy to point you to resources. We have artists who are doing that work, like Jed, um, who are happy to, you know, support you understanding and collaborating. So, you know, come tune in. And really, that’s, that’s my advice, you know, join the conversation. DM somebody, DM 100 people, you know, who are in the space and making moves. Because even if 45 don’t answer, that’s still 55 people who answered you and can answer your questions.
16:17Maceo WhatleyI think that’s way easier than trying to read about a space where what they wrote might not be relevant anymore. The space could be different, the platforms could be different, the players could be different. So the people and the minds are the place to connect. Um, the platforms are not here forever. That’s my take right now.
17:30Kamal HubbardAll right, and with that, don’t just make it a good day, make it a great day. A great day with crypto. Crypto with Kamal, and we’ll catch you on the next one.
17:41Maceo WhatleyPeace out, y’all. Booyah!
17:44Kamal HubbardAll right, thanks so much.
