By
Mayowa Adebajo
April 16th, 2024
Notably, the collaboration has been the first performance inspired by metaverse to ever take place at an award show. Besides, the track was up for the “Best Hip Hop” award.
MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) show has featured global rap icons Eminem and Snoop Dogg who performed their “From The D 2 The LBC” track inspired by the Otherside metaverse and Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs. The performance was also backed by Yuga Labs, a blockchain technology company that develops NFTs and digital collectibles.
The rappers launched the track earlier this year and released a music video featuring animated versions of their Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) avatars. The song was first previewed live at Ape Fest 2022 by the duo and was produced by 1st AMENDMENT and Young California, in collaboration with the BAYC. During the MTV Awards show, Snoop Dogg and Eminem were portrayed in a half-animated video, where the rappers are displayed with NFTs from the BAYC collection. For Eminem, it was about the NFT #9055 he bought last year for as much as 123 ETH (worth approximately $462,000 at the time) and is still displayed as his profile picture on Twitter. As for Snoop Dogg, he was also portrayed by one of the BAYC NFTs he purchased at the end of last year.
With their track, the rappers brought their NFT avatars to life inside the upcoming game Otherside.
Notably, the collaboration has been the first performance inspired by metaverse to ever take place at an award show. Besides, the track was up for the “Best Hip Hop” award.
Rappers’ Interest in Metaverse
Both Eminem and Snoop Dogg have been supporting the development of the metaverse and investing in NFTs.
Eminem, or Marshall Mathers III, purchased an NFT from OpenSea‘s NFT marketplace for $462,000 and subsequently became a member of the Bored Ape Yacht Club. In addition, Eminem partnered with Gemini-owned NFT platform Nifty Gateway to release his own NFTs. The NFTs collection is made up of Eminem’s original beats explicitly produced for the launch. There are three types of NFTs up for sale. The first two NFTs were released in 50 editions each and titled “TOOLS OF THE TRADE” and “STILL D.G.A.F.” The price was $5,000.
As for Snoop Dogg, the rapper and his son Champ Medici partnered with the NFT project Clay Nation to “bring iconic collectibles, unreleased music & limited edition ‘pitches.’” In addition, Snoop Dogg teamed up with the creator of the Nyan Cat meme, Chris Torres, for creating an NFT project dubbed “Nyan Dogg.” The product was selling in the OpenSea Market and obtained a 14.2 Ethereum equivalent to about $33,000 in a 1-on-1 auction.