A Tribe Called Quest Just Auctioned Off Royalties as an NFT

A Tribe Called Quest has entered the world of crypto. They just auctioned off a NFT that will give the winner royalties from the group’s first five albums.

NFTs aren’t dead… yet. 

Legendary hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest just auctioned off a NFT (Non-fungible token) that will give the holder royalties from the group’s first five albums: People’s Instinctive Travels And The Paths Of Rhythm, The Low End Theory, Midnight Marauders, Beats, Rhymes And Life, and The Love Movement.

The A Tribe Called Quest NFT was auctioned on Royalty Exchange. And the winner will get access to a 1.5% share of the royalties. Meaning that the winner receives bread every time some of the most iconic rap songs of all time are streamed, played on the radio, sampled, or appeared in films, TV shows, or commercials. 

The winning bid came from someone named Stephen F. The winning bid was 40.191 ETH, which is about $84,765 American dollars. There were more than 60 bids on the NFT. 

There’s a lot of cool details on the auction page. It shows that holders of the NFT would have gotten around $6,000 in royalties over the last year. The page also noted that “Can I Kick It?” was the highest-earning song last year, accounting for 27% of last year’s royalties for the group. Tribe’s music also appeared in a bunch of new movie and TV show properties, from Tom and Jerry to Soul toTed Lasso to The 40-Year-Old-Version. 

This isn’t the first time you could get publishing from an NFT. Royalty Exchange launched the first music publishing NFT with rapper Lil Dicky, which included royalties for “Save Dat Money.” The winning bid on that was 9.209 ETH, which is about 23,209.

This story was updated on July 1st, 2021.