Welcome to*** FRENS of WEB3, ***where we showcase the Web3 community members, artists, collectors, and creator projects across Australia & New Zealand and abroad. This week, we caught up with the multifaceted Brisbane-based Artist, DJ Producer and Marketing Manager for Pixelbands, Boi King Koi.
Please tell us a little bit about yourself?
Hi 👋, I’m Jai. I’m a Music Producer & DJ from Brisbane, Australia under the name Boi King Koi (King Koi is my real surname, It’s not a stage name 😂.
In my non-web3 life, I work full time in the Music and the Music Industry as a Tech House Artist/Music Producer, DJ, Podcaster, Recording Studio Owner/Operator as well as running and promoting events.
In the past, I’ve been the assistant director of events and touring agency in Brisbane as well as the head promoter of one of Brisbane’s largest nightclubs, The Family.
What are you currently working across in WEB3?
I am a core team member at Pixelbands, a Music NFT Technology company focused on developing tools for musicians in Web3.
We launched a successful first-of-its-kind 4444-piece generative collection, assigning audio loops submitted from our community as attributes to the NFTs. I implement the strategic direction of the project and our Marketing, Collaborations/Partnerships.
I’m also the co-host and co-founder of The NFT Project Podcast (together with friends Brok Neilsen and co-founder of Project DJ, Aaron Buttler) where we share our insights and experiences in the NFT space in a way musicians and industry professionals can easily understand to help educate and onboard them into the community.
As part of the podcast, I mint Music NFTs across a range of blockchains and music platforms to share my first-hand experience from a musician or creator's perspective.
While looking into the Music NFT space we came across Pixelbands through Wuki. . This led us to do our own research and fall in love with the Pixelbands project and vision. We minted and purchased some of their NFTs on the secondary market to create and mint a Band NFT which made the song that we have used for the intro music to the podcast.
We later had one of the founders Stephen Kotin on the podcast as our first interview guest. A few weeks after the interview with Kotin, I pitched the Battle of the Bands idea with a full promotional and marketing plan to the Pixelbands team. The team loved the idea and plan and they implemented it in collaboration with the NFT Project. Kotin messaged me a few weeks later and asked me to join the team in late April.
The week I joined the team we had the launch of our Music NFT Marketplace and our Music NFT Minting Launchpad which I had to plan and execute in a week 😂.
How would you describe what you do to some new to this space?
I host and produce a podcast about music NFTs, interview awesome people in the community and sometimes we do deep dives into music projects.
I execute marketing for an online start-up company, Pixebands where we are developing new technology for musicians to help them connect with their fans in a new way and manage our social media and connect with brands and companies on how we can work together.
What’s a typical work week look like?
I schedule my web3 work during the week and on weekends I am performing/DJing at venues. In one week I generally have 2–5 video call meetings with other brands/companies and meet once a week with the team.
Due to the time zones, meetings for me are always in the morning between 6am -12 pm. I also have to schedule all the social media posts as our main audience is in America. This means I mainly schedule posts for between 10 pm - 6 am. Because of the time zones, I find myself working on most web3 tasks during the morning or the first half of the day.
How do you manage communication with a global team located in different time zones?
We keep daily team contact through discord and individually via video calls. Our weekly team meeting is for most of the team on the east coast of USA and for our devs in South Africa.
WEB 3 feels like it moves at lightning speed, how do you stay connected across the space without the feeling of FOMO or perhaps burning out?
I stay off Twitter and away from the web3/NFT space on weekends while I am DJing/Performing at venues. As I manage our Twitter account, I need to remain connected to analyse what is happening across the whole space.
I interview people regularly on our podcast who are successful and leaders in the Music NFT space and regularly test new platforms to give first-hand feedback on the creator experience on the podcast.
I find balancing my real life and web 3 is important and I try to dedicate an equal amount of time to both. This allows me to spend some time each day or week where I’m away from either web 3 or my real and web 2 life.
What is the Australian WEB3 community like?
We seem to have a strong builder and founder community which I would expect. Australia has always been an early adopter of new technology. We are also often used as a testing ground for technology companies to test out new features and technologies.
From my personal experience, I haven’t seen a big collector community, however, I don’t spend most of my time connecting with collectors or collector communities. I spend most of my time working with builders, founders and those working in the NFT space and tend to meet more Australians this way.
Any advice for friends or family interested in NFTs and WEB 3?
Start now! Just do a little bit of research into the technology every day or regularly so you can learn the basics of how it all works. You don’t have to spend any money or buy any NFTs, just learn and get educated.
Our podcast is a good way to learn the basics, so I’d recommend it. Once you understand the basics then you can see if it is something that interests you, but regardless, when this becomes mainstream you will be ahead of the game.
What was the first NFT you bought & do you still own it?
My 1/1 SKRLX AAA VIP Pass from Project DJ. I still have it and don’t plan on selling it. This is the project by the two other hosts on our podcast.
Who are 3 people across WEB 3 or the NFT Community you would invite over for a meal?
*Blau, *3LAU
Gary Vee, Gary Vaynerchuk
Cooper Turley, Cooper Turley
Fast forward a year from now, what does this space look like for you?
This time next year I think our podcast will have grown dramatically. As we interview more notable people within our space our audience will only continue to grow. We have seen such good growth and feedback that we truly believe that the podcast will be big for us all.
I think at Pixelbands we will have implemented Comercial Music NFTs and integrated them with some web2 platforms to allow commercial music NFTs to be used seamlessly.
Make sure you follow BoiKingKoi (Jai) & and stay connected with The NFT Project and Pixelbands through the social media links below.
**Boi King Koi **Twitter Instagram Facebook
The NFT Project (Podcast)
Our aim throughout the Frens of Web 3 Series is to provide our community with practical tips and helpful insights to learn from the collective experiences of the creators, collectors and enthusiasts across the web 3 community.
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