Royal Dreads: Entertainment social impact NFTs combining music, art, film & storytelling

Sustainable ADA   |   Dec 6, 2022

What is Royal Dreads?

Philosophically we’re huge believers in the power of NFTs to be the catalyst to create and develop social communities that have a positive long term impact on individuals and worthy causes. We started the Royal Dreads with that goal in mind – to bring people together and have a positive impact on causes and creative projects we care about. From a business standpoint we’re excited by our goal to develop Royal Dreads into a successful entertainment brand that aims to create community viable intellectual property in the form of inspiring stories, music, film productions and events that are designed to appeal to a wide cross section of people, while promoting the values of diversity, inclusion and fighting for the disadvantaged (social justice).


The Team

The day to day management of the RD are led by Dread Ann who is the Co-Founder & Creative Director of Royal Dreads in addition to the Creator and head writer of the Royal Dreads story.

Dread Dave is co-founder and head of business development and strategy. Long term core members also include Dread Holy aka HolyBinns who provided valuable insights and Dread Cam, who has been active on the music recruitment aspect of the RD project.

Over the months we have expanded our team. Recently joined RD core team members include:

Dread Shontelle, Head of Strategy – Shontelle Layne is a Grammy nominated singer and songwriter and NFT music pioneer. She is internationally known for her hits “Impossible” and “T-Shirt”, as well as having written for stars such as Rihanna, Bruno Mars, Akon, Pitbull, DMX, Alison Hinds and Machel Montano.

Dread Turbo, Community Manager – is a former combat veteran bringing 20+ years of selfless leadership. TurboMadeit has worked in both entertainment and fashion helping young creatives to excel. Among other skills and talent, TurboMadeit is a musician, a web3 pioneer, and a great community builder.

Dread Joshua, Director of the Royal Dreads Animated Series – is an experienced and award winning writer and director who has won over 30 awards for screenwriting and who has joined us as the co-writer and director for the Royal Dreads animated series.

At present we are in the final process of announcing the launch dates for our Series 1 OG mint Series of 1,000 RD NFTs, called the Royal Senate, which features the unique opportunity for minters to personalize the look of their NFTS. In addition as Senate members, holders will enjoy increased influence, perks and creative direction of the project.

What led you to create your team and project?

For months, we were regularly attending Cardano Catalyst meetings and we were impressed with the vision and individuals attracted to the Cardano ecosystem. Once the introduction of smart contracts came to Cardano, we were excited by the prospect of CNFT’s to be used as vehicles to develop sustainable social communities that could have both online and IRL social impact and decided we wanted to do the work to build a sustainable NFT brand within Cardano through the launch of the Royal Dreads collection.


Challenges Royal Dreads solve in the blockchain space

The major challenges facing us as a social impact Entertainment Brand include (1)Being able to model our business in a way that allows us to efficiently allocate funds to our non-profit partners (2) Finding ways that we can identify and reward our most engaged community members (3) Developing structures that allow us as our brand grows to fund the future development of our IP (music, art stories) . Through using Blockchain enabled technologies such as smart contracts and NFTs, we are excited for the prospects for the Royal Dreads to evolve as a Web3 brand.

Challenges with current market

The market is currently in a state of flux, from the overall financial bear market, to regulatory uncertainty. From our perspective, our project is focused on being in the forefront of using NFTs to help have a positive social impact. As well as using NFTs as a tool to help creatives develop and ultimately monetize their IP. We believe that we are in a good position to help bring new people into the Cardano ecosystem, in addition to being an example of how NFT communities can be used as a catalyst to have IRL impact by bringing attention to important social impact issues.


Technical aspects of the NFTs

How did you mint/create this NFT?

  • NMKR is managing our Mint

How many in your collection are minted?

  • Our Series 1 OG mint includes only 1,000 NFT which will start minting at the end of November.

Who owns the intellectual property (IP) rights?

  • Arise Art Inc owns the name and the intellectual property involved in the Royal Dread NFT project.

What about royalties?

Royalties allow for ongoing revenue sharing with the creatives, team members and social impact partners involved in the Royal Dreads project. We have a 5% royalty on resales.

Utility of NFTs

We offer significant utility which range from your NFT acting as your all access pass to get access to online and IRL music, film, and social events. To have the opportunity to participate in the development of our animated series concept, and music development projects. We also offer unique learning and social activism opportunities for our holders to engage in based on their interests. As well, we offer creative members of our community with opportunities to enhance their career by participating in forums and networking opportunities with seasoned and successful artists, including Grammy nominated singers and songwriters, award-winning film producers, directors and screenwriters.


What are your thoughts on the future for this space?

We believe that there are numerous use cases for NFTs that over time will result in them becoming increasingly mainstream. From our perspective we believe that social impact focused NFTs like Royal Dreads will grow in popularity as more NFT investors also start looking at the project’s social mission as part of their investment criteria. In terms of our focus on the entertainment industry, we also foresee NFT’s becoming a recognized mechanism for independent artists and production companies of all sizes to use as a new means to deepen audience engagement, test market creative ideas and ultimately monetize their IP.


Why Mint on Cardano?

The community is outstanding, the technology is second to none. We love being part of the Cardano community and believe that it has tremendous upside potential, which is largely unrecognized by the general public. Thus creating tremendous opportunities for early participants.

More on the collection:

Culturally diverse anime inspired collection of characters generated from over 900 hand drawn traits, featuring an inspiring lore and art, original music being produced by Grammy nominated singer songwriter, Shantelle Layne.

Series 1 OG collection of 1,000 RD NFTs, called the Royal Senate, features the unique opportunity for minters to personalize the look of their NFTS, in addition as (Senate members ) enjoy increased influence, perks and creative direction of the project.

An unique aspect of the Royal Dreads, that we very excited about, and we hope indicative of the quality of our lore and art to be commercialized, is that our team has successfully secured a broadcast partner and received financial support from the Canadian Media Fund to start the development of an animated young adult series concept based on the Royal Dread lore and art.

In keeping with our social impact mission the Royal Dread has two initial charity partners Free the Girls, and Abolish Foundation who will receive on-going support from the growth of our project. In addition to a creator fund, that will receive 10% of the project’s net revenues which will be used to help other creators in our community kickstart their creative projects.


Connection to the Sustainable Development Goals

The United Nations’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are an urgent call for action by all countries. This enables countries to create global partnerships that work towards achieving these goals. The goal is to achieve the SDGs, which are built upon decades of work by countries and the UN.

Blockchain technology is a key technology for the SDGs because it enables stakeholders globally to have the ability to track, record, and share data that is immutable, timestamped, and verifiable. At Royal Dreads they are inspired by several SDG goals including SDG 10 – Reduced Inequalities, SDG 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production, SDG 8 – Decent Work , SDG 13 – Climate Action

Other Projects Connected to the SDGs

We excited about ramping up our work with our charity partners including Free the Girls and Abolish Foundation, whose respective organizations are doing amazing work helping reintegrate former victims of sex trafficking back into society by helping start small business or develop marketable skills to enter the workforce. Similarly in the case of Abolish Foundation they are doing excellent work in raising awareness about the exploitative nature of modern day slavery existing particularly as it adversely impact children.


Plans to collaborate with others in the ecosystem

“Yes from the start we have collaborated with NMKR who has been a valued advisor. We also are greatly appreciative of the guidance and support we have received from ADA Ninjaz, Introverts, Cardano Women, Serenity Pictures and so many other community leaders within the Cardano NFT ecosystem, who have been very supportive of our social impact mission.”

Thoughts on the future of the space

“We believe that there are numerous use cases for NFTs that over time will result in them becoming increasingly mainstream. From our perspective we believe that social impact focused NFTs like Royal Dreads will grow in popularity as more NFT investors also start looking at the project’s social mission as part of their investment criteria. In terms of our focus on the entertainment industry, we also foresee NFT’s becoming a recognized mechanism for independent artists and production companies of all sizes to use as a new means to deepen audience engagement, test market creative ideas and ultimately monetize their IP.”


News:

Yes we are launching our Series 1 (Royal Senate) OG collection in a matter of days. It’s for a very limited edition of 1,000 NFTs which buyers can personalize the look. Our focus is on attracting individuals who share our social impact mission to join us (Rise Up) and become part of the Royal Dread mission!

Learn More:

How to get involved?

Please follow us on Twitter, join our Discord, and look out for the upcoming mint.

Contact details and social media handles for communications: antoinette@ariseart.io

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