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JC Sterrett & Daniel Mazzone (Yume & Rainbow Lobster) - Decentralized Freethinking Transmedia Storytelling, Plus HeroMaker Studios, Kumite NFT, And More…
In today’s episode we have two primary guests who are shaping the future of creative expression: JC Sterrett and Daniel Mazzone. Both guests are part of Rainbow Lobster, a collective of freethinkers dedicated to co-creating and producing transmedia narrative projects. Daniel is also a virtual artist who is now creating digital pieces of his works, as well as NFT-integrated projects like Yume. Daniel and JC are ensuring that Yume has a positive impact and positively affects the world we live in. They are building a community that is encouraged to dream, to never give up, to be inspired and to inspire others. Yume characters (Yume translates to “dream” in Japanese) are designed to evoke these aspirations. Stay tuned and be inspired with Yume!
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JC Sterrett & Daniel Mazzone (Yume & Rainbow Lobster) – Decentralized Freethinking Transmedia Storytelling, Plus HeroMaker Studios, Kumite NFT, And More…
NFT curious readers, stay tuned for this episode and find out how Yume and Rainbow Lobster inspire freethinkers to follow their dreams, why empathy and patience can make all the difference and change in the world and how the Kumite NFT collection from HeroMaker Studios sprouted from the roots of Jean-Claude Van Damme movies and Comic Con. All this and more on this episode.
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This episode features JC Sterrett and Daniel Mazzone, the decentralized freethinkers co-creating and producing transmedia original content, art and activism. JC is SVP of Partnerships for Rainbow Lobster, a creative collective from around the globe of storytellers and like-minded freethinkers who are creating narratives for a transmedia world with a big focus on bringing traditional companies, brands, artists and content projects into the Web3, NFT and metaverse space.
Daniel was homeless at fifteen and now is considered the next Andy Warhol by Canadian billionaire Michael Wekerle. This renowned contemporary artist sold out for the seventh year in a row at the 2021 Art Basel show in Miami, drawing a crowd of more than 1,800 people to see his magnificent works. The cherry on top was the sale of his Yume NFT which sold on the final day for a whole $150,000.
Stained glass artist turned digital world builder, he strives to make meaningful art that inspires people to dream bigger. His objective is to provide a new lens through which we perceive the intricacies of life to learn how to slow down, notice the little things and take a closer look at what we already have. I already have an excellent life getting to hang out with you. Welcome to the show. This is going to be a blast. Let’s get it rolling.
Welcome. We do have a pretty cool life. We couldn’t have a better couple of guests here to join us in this conversation. Let’s get some background and start with the origin story. Let’s start on the Rainbow Lobster side. How did Rainbow Lobster come together?
Rainbow Lobster was masterminded by our CEO, Sebastian Arrechedera, who is also a Spirit Seed holder.
He has been lurking behind the scenes. I got to meet him at NFT LA. What a deep thinker. He’s a cool guy.
He’s an icon in advertising and creatives out of Latin America and globally. After selling his agency to Dentsu for a ton of money, he was like, “I’ll never have another employee ever again. I want to create what became Rainbow Lobster and a collective of freethinkers from around the globe.” They’re creatives, directors, movie makers, companies and personalities that became a part of this collective to help create the narratives that people are trying to tell, whether you’re an artist, company, brand or project and get your message out to the world. Rainbow Lobster was founded in Los Angeles and also has a headquarter in Mexico City.
I was part when it was all being created but I’m not taking credit for what Sebastian has done. He brought me into it and said, “You’re great at partnerships and PR. I would love you as part of Rainbow Lobster.” Ever since then, we have been embarking on amazing stuff. He’s the one who said, “You’ve got to get into NFTs and Web3. I need you to dive in there super fast.” It was at ETHDenver that I fully fell in love. I was like, “I’ll degen. I’m going all-in into the underground tunnels of NFTs and Web3.” It was amazing. The revolution that’s happening and what’s happening in the NFT space is pretty awesome. I feel that it’s the rave scene meets dot-com had a baby. That’s what Web3 is.
Dan, how about you? What led you to the world of NFTs? You’re a very accomplished artist for a long period. What was that trigger for you?
I’ve been making physical artwork for years. God bless, it has been a great ride. A lot of great things have happened. People have been asking me to make NFTs. All my work has to be meaningful. There has to be a message. I’m making digital pieces of the physical pieces that I make. I didn’t want to sell myself out for a paycheck, not reproduce stuff that people already have and just collect a paycheck. There was no meaning to it.
I was a little bit standoffish about it but I thought NFTs were great. I wanted to be a part of it but I didn’t know how. There was a moment where I thought, “I want to do this. How do I do this?” I have a character, Yume, which I created years ago. I’ve been making sculptures. It has been a real hit. I was homeless for five years. I didn’t get a chance to follow my dreams right away. I wanted to create a character that would inspire people.
I created Yume, which means dream in Japanese. Yume is a child wearing bunny rabbit pajamas. It’s supposed to represent the child that becomes the person they’re supposed to be no matter what. You followed your dreams. Even if you want to wear bunny rabbit pajamas every day, you do it. Yume is a generalist. It represents everyone. I thought, “That’s inspiring but what’s the correlation between NFTs, crypto and this world?”
For me, the correlation was if you asked anybody years ago about crypto and digital artworks being displayed in a metaverse as a gallery, people would have thought it was a sci-fi movie or you were crazy but all the people and pioneers that started all this believed in it. Guys like you, guys like me, guys like them and women like them all believed in this and never looked back. They’re changing the world and the way we see it forever. That’s the correlation. Yume is a dreamer and so are these people. Yume makes big things happen as these people did. That’s why I wanted to create a collection of Yume NFTs.
I love how that connection pans out. It makes a lot of sense. Congrats to you for finding your way on your journey. It sounds like it has been quite an interesting ride. It’s a lot to get through. That’s a whole topic of another episode. I’m sure we could talk through that story. I want to talk about something that could be related to activism. You are passionate about activism. I’m curious about how you can communicate with the audience and promote activism through art.
Giving back is a huge deal for me. I’ve been giving back every year with my regular artwork. I always donate to children’s charities or women’s charities. Women’s charities are a big one for me as well. My mom was also homeless when we were kids. That has always been a big deal for me. I like to help out in both ways. That’s why we made our collection small as well. I didn’t want it to be a project that was about money. It was about creating the community smaller so we could find the right people, not just a bunch of people buying it to flip it because we want to bring like-minded people together and show that wasn’t a project about making money.
We created an NFT for Ukraine, which was in Times Square for two weeks, that would be auctioned. We’re fortunate enough to be able to donate $40,000. It’s being able to do more things like this with our NFTs. In the future, what we would like to do is be able to find people that would sponsor. Maybe with every NFT sold, we could get a water filter system for people that don’t have a system. Giving back is a big deal for me.
I love this idea of having each NFT connected to something. We’re doing that with our Living Tree NFTs that are coming out. Each one is going to plant 25 trees. We did it with our Spirit Seeds where we offset the annual carbon emissions equivalent of 1 individual for 1 year with each of those. Do it. We wrote that check when the collective sold out. That happened. You can affect the world incredibly and positively. People can feel it on an individual basis when you have an NFT collection. Their NFT connects to something specific. It’s pretty cool.
There are so many issues in the world that need to be fixed. Sometimes we feel like the world is so big and we’re by ourselves, “Is what I’m doing going to be enough?” There’s this project and projects like Spirit Seeds. The more there are these projects that are giving back and helping, it’s so much easier to fix the world when you have so many people helping out and also getting something in return.
Some of the best give-back programs are rooted in things that do generate tremendous amounts of value for everybody involved than typically for-profit ventures that if crafted the right way with the right DNA can impact the world in meaningful ways that in many cases even a nonprofit can’t do or is not positioned to do. It’s cool to see so much of that evolve from the world of NFTs and all that it represents. On that note, we mentioned in the intro the idea of decentralized freethinkers. We wanted to ask. What do decentralized freethinkers mean to you and your universe?
NFT Art: If you asked anybody 10 years ago about crypto and digital artworks being displayed in a metaverse as a gallery, people would’ve thought it was a sci-fi movie or you were crazy.
Freethinkers are people that are not afraid to go beyond the box, think out of the box, freely think, be bold and courageous with your thoughts and storytelling, have that ability to think freely and then have a big impact. This is the Web3 community and what’s happening in Web3. There’s this revolution happening. We come from working with corporate worlds and corporate brands where you have to fit into their box and think their way.
Even when you’re telling their story, you don’t have that ability to be a freethinker. The decentralized is the spirit of the Web3 space and the crypto space. When you have those two combinations, you can not only make a big splash and impact but you can also use innovation, technology, community and so many things to tell that story. It’s where it spawns from.
There’s some unlearning that has to be done as well when you’ve been in that corporate environment or you’re coming from that corporate environment to be able to legitimately internalize that way of viewing the world. It’s tough. We’ve got all these ideas.
One thing that we have very clear is we push the envelope even for corporations. Why they come to us is because they are at the end of the day also looking for that because creatives create. The corporate world and tech guys create too but build something else. As much as we need them, they need us but what they need from us is for them to be able to tell their story properly.
It reminds me of a conversation I had with my son. He was going to visit another teacher’s class, moving from one class to the other. You think of freethinking and unencumbered thought. He was going to visit the class because he might be joining this other teacher’s class in 2023. He’s four in 2022. He doesn’t even know. He said, “Is my teacher’s class broken? Why am I going?” It was such an interesting statement.
You’re like, “That’s a four-year-old.” It’s an unencumbered thought. It’s like, “Why do you have to go do this thing if you didn’t do that?” It’s because the thing might be broken. It’s this interesting view. It would never cross my mind. Even such a small thing reminds me of exactly what you talked about in having the capacity to even introduce a thought like that, which would probably never cross any of our minds. It’s very cool stuff.
Let me add a little bit. This is why we love working with Daniel. What this character Yume represents is that. Yume is that genderless freethinker who is out inspiring the world to dream, chase and never give up.
Let’s chat about Yume a little bit more. It’s a good transition. We will let you take it, JC. Talk about the details, the scoop on how it works, utility and maybe even a little bit about the essence of the artwork. Give the reader a download of the visuals there. Is there anything you can add?
There are several utilities that we have. One of the biggest utilities in this project for us is the art because this is an art-based project. One, Daniel is a very established artist with a lot of traction with this artwork. When you’re making art that is meaningful and has a lot of background with it, not only do we feel but we’re also seeing it and hearing it in the space. Art is a lot of times the biggest utility that you can offer because there’s something behind that already. It’s not something new or something that exists.
The other part is creating inspiration for others and a community that inspires, welcoming to build this community and helping our community build this community that we’re building to inspire. We’re living in this world. A lot of people have lost inspiration and vision. There are a lot of lost souls in the world. I feel that the Web3 community and the NFT space are giving that back to a lot of people. During COVID, for a lot of people, all they had was their degen communities or Discord communities.
That alone has created this whole movement of inspiring others. We’re going to that and going deeper into utilities. We’re working with a physical part of getting a print. Daniel is going to have some prints made. He never makes prints but there’s going to be a high-end print of a Yume that each holder will get. It’s going to be hand-touched by Daniel. Also, it’s going to have his signature on there. You’re going to get the actual physical piece of art with you as a holder.
You won’t have to burn any of these either because sometimes people want you to burn your NFT to get the art. We’re giving you the art with the NFT.
It’s also having access because Daniel has a lot of things. He has a big presence in Art Basel, where he has a great event. We’re giving the holders the ability to come to a private showing of an Art Basel show. It will be for holders exclusively with Daniel there and all his art. We will have the NFTs and the sculptures up. You get to meet Daniel. It will be exclusive to them. We feel that people want to have that ability to have that. We have a couple of other stuff there. I feel that those are the key things. Am I missing one that’s important, Daniel?
We have an estate in Pavia as well. We will create a unique clubhouse where we can bring people together. The biggest idea behind doing the project was Yume being the dreamer. With things being decentralized and Twitter being taken over, thank God, the thing that annoyed me was the cancel culture and the government hiding media on what’s happening. Everything is tailored for what they want us to see. In this decentralized land, it’s having a small community of like-minded thinkers and dreamers come together because we want people to think like us.
If people that buy this NFT come together, you will have an avatar of this Yume and be able to go to the clubhouse. How great would it be to meet people that are like-minded and think like you? It’s the only way the world will ever change and the only way we’re going to have inventions. The only way penicillin was invented or the car was because people had dreams and people were innovators. The more that our ability to speak freely is taken away, takes away our ability to grow. It’s having this clubhouse and hosting events that I’ll go to live and in metaverses. It’s a nice place to bring these people together to make a difference in the world and some change.
Where did you say the space was?
It will be in Pavia, which is from Cardano. We’re working on other metaverses as well where we will create clubhouses so you can travel to all of them. It will be nice. You can bring your Yume Helmet that you will get with an NFT and be able to go to these places, meet other people that bought them and host events with music or maybe it’s a chat about a topic. These types of people must stick together and help change the world. Sometimes you feel like you’re by yourself. You don’t know how to do things but if there’s a group of people, the energy’s there to do something.
To touch upon that little sliver of my question as well, can you paint a picture of the picture? Tell us about the colors, what feelings it evokes and what’s going on there.
What I want to do with this project and another reason we made it small was that I wanted to hand-detail all of them. None of this stuff is computer-generated. Each one has been gone through and I picked colors, faces, collages, what accessories are on there and what’s happening in the background. Everything has been tailored by me and the team. I wanted to do that because there’s more soul to it. I’m seeing so many projects where it looks like one’s got a cigar, one’s got this and one’s got that. There’s no real life to it.
All of my pieces, whether they are digital or real, have to have some touch for me or I don’t feel confident. I’m not proud of it. There are going to be colorful ones and dark ones. Some are happy, superhero-like and inspiring. We have topics of women’s pride and gay pride. We have had sports collabs. There’s something for everybody though. Every detail has been gone over with all of us.
Thanks for diving deeper.
Much of this is about inspiration and influencing people in ways that are about those underlying values you talked about like freethinking and open-mindedness. I’m curious as to how you think about this project inspiring folks to chase their dreams. What are the things that you see in the project that can spark something in somebody that could change their life? How do you view that part of this project?
There are two parts to it. One of them is the character and what it needs. You see this character but then it’s just a character. Why would I be inspired by this character? The other part of it is my story from someone who had nothing. I had a rough childhood. I was homeless for five years. I was sleeping in movie theaters for $2 and subway trains. It was not easy. Some people have it even worse than I had it. The idea behind my story and that character are you being able to wear this suit per se. Maybe my story is the inspiration that it can be anybody.
That’s why Yume is a generalist because it is anyone. It’s my story and the character together that will go, “This guy can do it. Anybody can do it.” It doesn’t matter how hard life is and what life throws at you. There are always people there. The thing is I wouldn’t have gotten there if there weren’t support. I had support from people that care about me. That’s what this is. It’s a community where it’s like, “One person is down. I’ll be your rock to lean on. I can help you do this.”
It’s a community about people helping each other. It doesn’t mean you have to change the world. Maybe it’s something simple. Maybe you need someone. It’s a community of people who care. People are going to be there to help you when you’re down. It’s not about creating some brilliant invention. That’s not where I’m getting at. It could be something as simple as, “I’m having problems in my life. Maybe I need someone to talk to that I respect.” That’s what it is. It’s the character and my story.
Thank you.
Daniel, how about you?
It’s a rave ticket. I was a rave promoter.
Daniel, how about you?
Other than weed and ice, I don’t know.
It’s a trip to Italy.
Daniel, how about you?
I sold three pieces to a client of mine.
It’s my family.
Daniel, how about you?
To spice it up, it’s Twitter.
It’s 100% empathy.
It’s more patience
It’s being impatient.
I was on a Zoom call.
The best place to go is on Twitter @KumiteNFT. On Discord, they could follow us at HeroMaker Studios. On Kumite, we have a link to our Discord. You can follow me @GarebShamus on Twitter and @GarebShamus on Instagram.
Thank you.
Thanks. We will talk soon. Take care.
Congratulations. That’s awesome.
Should we do our official walkout, Jeff?
Important Links
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@KumiteNFT – Twitter
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HeroMaker Studios – Discord
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@GarebShamus – Twitter
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@GarebShamus – Instagram
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@YumeNFTs – Twitter
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@DanielMazzoneArt – Instagram
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@Rainbow_Lobster – Twitter
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@Rainbow.Lobster – Instagram
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JC Sterrett – LinkedIn
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Spotify – Edge of NFT
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iTunes – Edge of NFT
About JC Sterrett
As a 25+ year veteran in the Music & Entertainment Industry, it is my goal are to stay on the cusp of the industry’s ever-present changes. Through continued leadership roles, I apply my unique skill set specializing in the entertainment, music and event industries. As a motivated and experienced expert in these fields, I have spent my career entrenched in the entertainment/music businesses focused on delivering results through unique marketing campaigns, innovation through forecasting trends, and maximizing growth potential through specialized platforms in both the US and Latin American markets.
Most recently, my enthusiasm for the evolving industry atmosphere has led me into the digital media space. Through collaborations with Havas Worldwide and Pepsi Cola, I helped develop strategic consumer engagement platforms designed to bring music, brands & fans together.
Skills and Achievements:
Dynamic international business leader specializing in US, Latin/South America, focused on improving relationships and achieving long-term solutions
Highly connected industry leader, close peer relationships with top industry leaders throughout US, Latin & South America
Expert live events producer and conceptualist, experienced entertainment, tour & artist manager, 20+ years specializing in Electronic Music, Rock and Latin Music
Savvy marketing strategist, highly experienced in creating new platforms for brands and a proven successful track record of executing highly profitable events, closing substantial sponsorship deals and connecting bands, brands & fans with never before seen initiatives
Proven success through execution of creative strategy through digital & social media, corporate branding, and gorilla marketing
About Daniel Mazzone
Daniel Mazzone was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. As part of an artistic family, he was surrounded by a world of visual concepts and expression. His mother was an art instructor, and Mazzone became particularly interested in the composition and production of stained glass at a young age. During his school days, teachers and fellow students alike saw his inherent artistic ability and potential. The youthful exploration of his artistic talents were pushed aside when he became homeless at the age of 15. Once Mazzone got back on his feet a few years later, he pushed himself to explore his true passions again.
All his inspirations flooded back after watching an art documentary film and was invigorated to create art purely for the joy of it, reminiscent of his childhood. A friend was so impressed by Daniel’s first piece he begged to display it in his Toronto restaurant. Mazzone agreed, with the stipulation that his first artwork would not be available for sale. But his work spoke for itself and Mazzone received a call – it was just purchased for $14,000. He was initially in utter disbelief that someone could love and value his art enough to pay for it. His dreams of being recognized as a true artist were unfolding before his eyes. It was from this point where he understood that success could be achieved with passion, persistence and dedication.
In 2013, Mazzone began exhibiting at both the Canadian Heritage Art Company and at Hazelton Fine Art Gallery for the next two years. It was not until the Toronto International Art Fair in late 2014 where his artwork really caught the attention of the renowned Tanenbaum family, whom are part of the top 200 art collectors in the world.
Since then, Mazzone has been making waves nonstop across North America. In May 2015, he did his first show, “Torn Apart”, in New York City at the Carriage House Arts Center and in December made his official Art Basel Miami debut at 1 Hotel South Beach, “A Walk Through Life”, selling out his entire collection of 25 pieces at the show. Some notable buyers from this show were François-Henry Bennahmias, Randy Frankel and José Bautista, where Bautista purchased 5 pieces on opening night and has since commissioned a number of works from Mazzone.
Mazzone continues his journey of creative exploration and pushing the envelope with his unique style as he prepares his much anticipated return to Art Basel Miami Beach for his sophomore show this December 2016.