Picture This – Famed Hip Hop Photog Ernie Paniccioli Pulled the Trigger on his first NFT Drop. The target? None other than Grandmaster Melle Mel - Auction Closed.
UPDATE:
THE AUCTION IS CLOSED.
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Acclaimed hip hop photographer Ernie Paniccioli has announced that Grandmaster Melle Mel will be the subject of his very first NFT. Even more exciting, this NFT rendering will include an audio message from the grandmaster himself recorded specifically for this occasion.
Let's Rethink This is collaborating with Brother Ernie to honor Melle Mel for his decades in the industry and especially for the impact of his 1982 classic "The Message". This song about the gritty realities of urban life at the time was pivotal in turning hip hop into an art form that could reach a wider audience. The Message paved the way for future hip hop MC's to use their music as a platform to share their own message.
Reveal
Ernie Paniccioli, named as the Let’s Rethink This Inaugural Impact Artist to celebrate his lifetime of achievements and his historic role in capturing with his camera the world of Hip Hop from its very birth, is now capturing a new audience – art collectors who specialize in acquiring historic NFT’s (non-fungible tokens).
At 1:20 PM EST on Thursday, September 30, in partnership with Let’s Rethink This, Ernie “dropped” a photo of the famed Hip Hop artist, Grandmaster Melle Mel. The auction completed at 1:20 PM EST on Monday, October 4.
The collector, whomever he/she may be, will be acquiring history. Of all the 250,000 “Brother Ernie” photos archived in the rare manuscripts and records section of the Cornell University Library, only one was chosen as his very first venture into the rendering of his art for sale on the Open Sea platform.
Take a long look here: https://bit.ly/3zUSziz
“Economically, it expands the artist’s ability to survive…and for the first time ever benefit from residual revenue should their art be sold and resold again (each sale includes a stipulation that a percentage on each sale is paid to the artist even when sold by new purchasers).
Ever the humanitarian, Ernie expands the conversation to include how NFT’s and the revenues they generate can be used by artists to “give back to their community, to solve things. To rethink them. A donation of even a small share in the sale of a digitized piece is helpful, but it does something more important – it brings awareness of the problem.”
We finally know the artist and the photo chosen by Ernie Paniccioli to be rendered into his first NFT (non-fungible token) and his first venture into the strange (to most) world of crypto and blockchain
None other than the famous Grandmaster Melle Mel.
How in the world, out of an unprecedented digital collection in the hundreds of thousands, 20,000 of which are in Cornell Library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections and include shots of LL Cool, Run DMC, Public Enemy, Salt N Pepa, Queen Latifah and on and on, did Ernie choose this particular picture of this particular Hip Hop artist?
For clues, visit articles about Ernie at the Let’s Rethink This website, by visiting his website, www.erniepaniccioli.com, or by purchasing his famous best-selling book compilations titled “Who Shot Ya,” or “Hip Hop at the End of the World.”
The drop took place noon eastern time (12:00 noon EST) on Thursday, September 30 and completed at noon eastern time (12:00 noon EST) on Monday, October 4.
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