FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — FEBRUARY 21, 2018

HONG KONG

The hosts of MC Plays

In the digital age, independent artists often struggle to find lucrative payment channels to showcase their music. Popular streaming services pay out fractions of a cent per play, and issue royalty payments infrequently. Musicoin — the world’s first streaming service powered by blockchain technology — solves this problem by paying artists fairly, directly, and instantly. Every time a song is played on their platform, the artist receives one Musicoin in their digital wallet — a cryptocurrency which can be traded for Bitcoin. Listening is free to all users.

Fresh off of its one-year anniversary, Musicoin’s user base is growing, and quickly converting some of its artists into evangelists for the project. About to enter its third week, MC Plays is a live YouTube broadcast hosted by four North American and British Musicoin artists who regularly convene online to discuss their love of music and cryptocurrency.

“Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology is the internet boom of our generation that gives us an opportunity to create wealth for our people,” says PUP (Pain United with Passion), a conscious hip hop artist, community activist, and youth mentor from Connecticut. He hosts a YouTube channel (Crypto Kingz) that merges hip hop’s innovation and style with cryptocurrency education. When PUP discovered Musicoin, he knew it was the perfect marriage of his favorite pursuits.

South London’s Neil Keating (aka Controlled Weirdness) is a longtime producer and DJ who has been involved in all aspects of underground club and sound system culture since the early 80s. Having managed two record labels (previously, Unearthly Records and currently, Presence Unknown), he’s attracted to the immediacy of the technology and its ease for compensation for independent musicians.

Khaiim the RapOet (aka Self Suffice) is an MC from New York City who has received numerous accolades for lecturing positive messages to youth at high schools and colleges (including Yale and Trinity) —earning President Obama’s “Champions of Change” distinction. He has performed around the world with artists, including Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Alice Walker and Grammy winners Talib Kweli and Common.

England’s Daniel Lawton used to record acoustic artists for his YouTube channel ACTV (Acoustic Central TV), before getting interested in creating and engineering his own music. After receiving an offer to study at the British Academy of New Music, he gained first-class honors studying Creative Music Technology at Anglia Ruskin University. He is currently working on his first neo-classical/ambient EP.

“After University, I became very interested in the application of blockchain technology in the music industry,” says Lawton, who is also now a video coordinator for Musicoin TV.

On Sunday, February 25, the MC Plays hosts will be joined by French Musicoin artists Pamela Hute and multi-Grammy Award nominee Pascal Guyon.

Watch MC Plays live on the Musicoin TV YouTube channel on Sundays at 2 p.m. ET, 11 a.m. PT, and 7 p.m. GMT.

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Musicoin (MUSIC) is a smart cryptocurrency and music streaming platform built upon the Musicoin blockchain. Musicians and listeners worldwide are encouraged to visit Musicoin’s official website at musicoin.org.

Please contact press@musicoin.org for media inquiries.