10:22PM
- A Universal Music label is launching a band of NFT apes into the metaverse.
- The band will be called Kingship and will allow fans to listen to music and enjoy virtual experiences.
- The band's characters will be marketed just like any other real musical group – with a backstory.
A musical group of non-fungible token apes is coming to a metaverse near you.
The band, to be called Kingship, is comprised of four digital apes who together will forge into the metaverse with new music, NFTs, and virtual experiences, according to a Thursday press release from 10:22PM, a label for the world's largest record company, Universal Music.
The apes in the band hail from the Bored Ape Yacht Club, a highly sought-after collection of 10,000 unique ape NFTs verified on the ethereum blockchain.
Buyers – like NFT collector Jimmy McNeils, who is supplying the apes for the band – have full commercial rights to the characters, Bloomberg reported.
The band's characters will include "a Mutant Ape and three Bored Ape characters," according to the release. And a team of crypto artists is working to make the 2D creatures 3D to help them "come to life," 10:22PM head Celine Joshua told Bloomberg, which first reported the story.
Joshua said her team will develop a marketing plan for Kingship, from telling the world how they met to who they are, just like how real-life artists are launched into the public eye.
"Through music and events across the metaverse, we will bring the Apes in Kingship to life by building communities and utility, and entertaining audiences around the world," she said in the release.
McNeils told Bloomberg he'd like "to see Kingship be one of the main ways the mainstream is introduced to NFTs in the metaverse."
The market for NFTs has ballooned this year. In the third quarter alone, NFTs scored $10.7 billion in trading volume, up from $2 billion in the prior quarter, according to DappRadar.