Mumbai-based sitar maestro Purbayan Chatterjee has announced the drop of his unique NFT collection, ‘Pursuits of Purbayan’ (POP) which comprises 11,100 variations, including some of his most celebrated sitar pieces as audio NFTs.
“Art must look to the future; for an artist to stay relevant, he must explore all that is new and POP, much like my collection of NFTs,” said the maestro. “I believe this is a fairly new platform for all kinds of artists to showcase their life and work and add value to it.”
Chatterjee – who recently dropped the album, ‘Saath Saath’ with greats, Rakesh Chaurasia, Satyajit Talwalkar and Ojas Adhiya – is fresh off an Independence Day performance at Carnegie Hall in New York. He’s known for seamlessly blending Hindustani classical music with world music genres.
The new NFT drop is also an attempt to promote world music as well as build a community of musicians and artists to promote fusion music, especially Hindustani classical, with the campaign ‘#Be1WithMusic’.
Fans will be able to mint Chatterjee’s new avatar as NFTs that are part of a collection called ‘Ace Sitarists’. Collectors can also get their hands on Golden, Silver, and bronze tokens as a part of the Musical Loot or Lootbox. There are also plans to release a mini-game and a host of live performances.
“Such is the Pursuits of Purbayan as he travels the world to #Be1WithMusic,” explains POP’s Twitter account. “POP is out and about to build a community of people who understand that music runs the world. He has embarked on a journey to unify the world, note by note , tune by tune and beat by beat. You can too
The minting of the NFTs will begin at the end of August, and buyers can make offers and own their favourite variations of the sitarist on Opensea. POP has been the result of a partnership between Chatterjee and digital media company, Leftminds Innovations.
Additionally, 1% the net proceeds from the NFT sale will be donated to the NGO Cuddles Foundation that helps underprivileged children fight cancer.
While Indian musicians have wholeheartedly embraced the concept of NFTs and added to their musical endeavours, classical music has been slightly late to get on the trend. It’s changing though. Recently, Manasa Rajan, CEO of Jupiter Meta said in an interview the company is working towards creating a platform for classical music and folk music in the metaverse. Even WazirX, one of the country’s more popular cryptocurrency exchanges, features ‘Project Lustre’, an NFT of the Tamil song, ‘Shri Kanthimathim’ originally composed by Muthuswami Dikshitar at the Nellaiappar temple in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu.
Check out the Ace Sitarists on Opensea
