In the late 90s a loose collective of musicians came together at Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village to record what would become D’Angelo’s acclaimed album Voodoo. Sharing a zodiac sign and love of unconventional rhythms the Soulquarians was born, initially consisting of Questlove (The Roots), D’Angelo, James Poyser and J Dilla.

In the years following the group collaborated with artists like Mos Def, Common, Erykah Badu, Q-Tip, Talib Kweli, Bilal and many others. Influencing each other and freely experimenting in the studio, they created arguably some of the greatest Hip Hop and Neo Soul albums of all time including Common’s Like Water for Chocolate and Erykah Badu’s Mamas Gun.

This creative energy existed in a unique moment in time. The collective was informal and never officially released music as a group, but the impact they had on music and culture was profound and far reaching.

After pressure from their record labels and an awkward interview in Vibe the group ended up parting ways, but it makes you wonder… What would the Soulquarians have looked like in this new onchain era.

That’s what we’re here to explore.

With tools like Zora, Catalog, Sound and many others, musicians are able to explore new ways of monetising their creative works and truly owning the value created by them. Fairly distributing value via splits and onchain royalties means collaborating with people you have never met over the internet becomes easier than ever before.

Inspired by the vibe and creative spirit of the Soulquarians we want to experiment with new models of collective collaboration to produce cultural artefacts that live forever. A creative moment in time, recorded onchain.

We are currently raising funds via party.app to send a group of four artists to FWB Fest in Idyllwild, CA to meet for the first time and collaborate on a piece of music which will then be minted, auctioned and distributed to the artists and the community who supported them.

The crowdfund will run for 7 days, after which the community will vote on the artists who will make up the collective. The funds raised will be used to pay for flights, accomodation, tickets to the event, transport and food.

We don’t know what the result of this experiment might be, but by exploring new ways to fund and bring together like-minded artists we hope that a new generation of the Soulquarians can be born online.

If you would like to participate in the Soulquest project as an artist or supporter please jump into the Fam Discord server and say hello 👋

For more info check out our Twitter