Music can uplift our spirits, ignite our passions, and even heal our wounds when used with the right intention. It’s THAT magic that motivates artist Rosalie — from healing from a breakup with a narcissistic sociopath (I mean, who hasn’t?) to the meditative nature of taking music making a step at a time. Discover more about Rosalie’s philosophical underpinnings in our latest edition of 10 Questions!
- If you could have any superpower, but it had to be related to music, what would it be?
I would want the ability to heal through my music. There would be some sacred code imprinted into the vibrations so that whenever anyone listened to my songs they would heal, align with their True Self, and feel divine peace. I already pray before I work on music, asking for God to use me as an instrument for my Greatest Good and the Greatest Good of us all. So my superpower would be a version of that prayer.
2. What is the most personal or meaningful song or piece you have created, and why does it hold such significance to you?
My most personal song is called There Used To Be Four. I lost my dad about seven years ago now, and it’s a song about what it’s like to process grief… what it’s like to remember what things were like for us as a family before he passed. He was a photographer and took photos or video of literally everything growing up, so the song is about me watching my family’s memories through the lens that he saw life through. I went through about forty hours of his home video footage to grab audio samples and weaved in the voices of my family and myself as a little girl to help tell the story of the song. It’s this electronic singer-songwriter genre blend and I used the audio samples as a drop of sorts and as a way to have a posthumous conversation with him. It actually made it my genesis NFT because I wanted my first solo web3 project to be something really authentic, vulnerable, and experimental. You can listen here and there are still a few editions left.
3. What new web3 tools are you experimenting with and what do you enjoy most about it?
One of my current experiments is with Showtime. I love how web3 artists have been using Showtime’s music drop pre-save feature where you can mint a free NFT that automatically pre-saves a song to your Spotify library. I didn’t have a new release ready, but I didn’t want that to stop me, so I’m currently running an experiment to see if I can use its mint-for-Spotify save pipeline on a song that is already out. I chose my song Hologram and took some of the raw music video footage to create a free music video artifact NFT. The drop is still in progress, but so far I’ve seen a 2% increase in the song’s Spotify score through the increase in saves.
4. How do you see web3 technologies shaping the future of the music industry?
I hope that web3 technologies will make it easier for people to make a sustainable living as an artist. For example, blockchain technology can create an additional revenue stream where music can be treated like fine art. In addition, it creates a way for artists, songwriters, and producers to get paid immediately, instead of having to wait months for royalty checks. In addition, with platforms like Reveel or 0xsplits, I’ve seen a lot of musicians collab at songwriting camps, sell those songs as NFTs, and be able to easily split sales between them, no matter where the collaborators live. I think a really empowering paradigm is emerging.
5. Where are you located & what’s the best meal in your city?
I’m in Los Angeles (born and raised!) and my favorite place to eat is True Food Kitchen. It’s sad cause that is actually a chain, but the flip side is that there might be one by you and if there is, you should definitely go get some of that deliciousness.
6. What book are you reading currently?
I’m currently reading A Course in Miracles. I really love spiritual books and I try to incorporate meditation and a little bit of reading into my morning routine every day if I can.
7. In your opinion, what’s the best way to roll out a song or album?
I think this is such a personal question, as every song and artist is different. Marketing is an art form in and of itself. I think the most important thing is to figure out what you want to say about the song, be true to yourself and to the song, and then be consistent. Learn about the tools available to you, such as organic social media, paid social media and Google ads, Submithub, Showtime, and more. There are lots of YouTube videos available for free to learn about the areas that you don’t know about yet. Treat each release like an experiment and just keep learning and iterating to see what works for you. It’s about consistently showing up for you and your art. It’s about not getting discouraged if a song doesn’t do as well as you hope. In this single-oriented and algorithmic economy, it can take time to build data and get traction. Build a solid foundation and then keep building on top of it. It’s ok if the climb is slow. You can walk the whole world an inch at a time. It’s also equally important that when a song does do well, to stay grounded and to not let success feed the ego.
8. What’s the craziest or most unexpected thing that’s inspired a song?
I think the craziest thing that inspired a song was finding out my first love was a narcissistic sociopath. It was devastating. I felt like my life had turned into a soap opera. There was a time when every song I wrote was about that experience. I had so much to process and get out. But when I was going through the heat of healing, I didn’t hear any songs that told my story. It didn’t feel like a normal breakup or heartbreak, and I really wanted to hear music that made me feel less alone and helped me understand what happened to me. So I wrote my story myself, and one of those songs became my best-performing songs to date. It’s called Hologram, and it’s about the facade that sociopaths and narcissists wear in a relationship. It’s not on the blockchain yet, but you can hear it here.
9. What advice would you give someone entering into web3?
I’d say it’s ok to feel overwhelmed by all the new tech and jargon. That’s totally normal. Be patient, keep showing up, and soon enough it will seem like second nature. I’d also say the best way to learn and get to know the ethos, vibe, and people in web3 is to join communities built around the areas/topics you’re interested in. Just make sure to do your research to make sure the communities you are joining are reputable.
10. Projects of yours we should know about?
I’m about to enter a season where I’ll be releasing a lot of new music soon, and a lot of those new songs will be in Dolby Atmos. I was really excited to release the very first Atmos track ever on Sound.xyz, a song called Half Life. It sold out (thank you so much!!!) and I’m getting ready to drop my next Atmos track on there soon. In the meantime, I still have some editions left of a remix I did for Half Life with Green Ring that I think is this beautiful ethereal sci-fi rendition of the song. All holders get access to my token-gated chat called The Rose Garden and I’m going to keep finding ways to add value and give back to collectors. Got a couple things up my sleeve :)
