Major Dream Williams on NFT The Movie And Minting Culture, Plus SoRare To Get $532 Million In Funding Led By Softbank, Largest Round In Crypto History

NFT the Movie is one of the next big things when it comes to NFTs. The movie will document the stories of inspiring artists from around the world through NFT technology. Major Dream Williams is one of the people attached to the project. He helps represent Caribbean culture and the uniqueness Puerto Rico has to offer. Major is the Founder of DreamVille Labs PR and the Chief Curating Officer of the Caribbean Art Mob. Learn how he got into NFTs and the importance of embracing culture. Tune in to get inspired! Join your hosts Eathan Janney, Jeff Kelley, and Josh Kriger and their guest, Major Dream Williams, as they tackle the meaning of culture and a little bit more about the movie.

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Major Dream Williams on NFT The Movie And Minting Culture, Plus SoRare To Get $532 Million In Funding Led By Softbank, Largest Round In Crypto History

Welcome to the show. We got a great episode featuring our guest, Major Dream Williams.

**We’ll find out what the heck NFT the Movie is and what does it have to do with elevating culture. **

We’ll also find out what’s led to the largest round of funding in crypto history at $500 million.

In addition, we’ll learn what the three ingredients are that Major Dream recommends to help the next generation thrive. Find out about all this and more on this episode of Edge of NFT. Don’t forget to head over to our website at EdgeOfNFT.com to sign up for our newsletter and dive further down the rabbit hole.

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This episode features Major Dream Williams, an early blockchain adopter with a background in traditional finance. He and his company are documenting how to use NFT innovation to move the culture forward and connect humanity. It’s called NFT The Movie, a documentary about the movers, shakers and givers in NFTs anchored around the first successful blockchain vote for Brock Pierce and the team that was a part of it. Welcome, Major.

It’s so great to see you and to be in person with you. We are having a great time in Puerto Rico. It’s too good. Too many piña coladas and mojitos. It’s been great to see you and see so much vibrant energy around blockchain and making Puerto Rico the best place on Earth. Having you here is fantastic. To kick it off, given your diverse background where you have the opportunity to see the world through many different cultures? What does culture mean to you?

First of all, thank you for having me here. I’m super excited. The space is super exciting and the reason that I feel even more is because I get a chance to help mint culture. You ask, “What is culture?” Culture is the lifeblood of any vibrant civilization and community. Culture is how we talk, how we eat, what we eat, how we dress, how we wear our hat, how we talk with our slang, how we dance and walk. These types of what is normally intangible are the things that make you walk down the street and realize, “That’s different.” When you see that, that is culture shining through.

Over the last many years, there have always been people who see culture and are able to take it somewhere where it doesn’t affect the culture positively. Whether that be monetarily or in the philosophical aspect because they’re now putting their piece of culture in other people’s hands. It gets to be wrangled, mangled and whatever have you so that something like Tex-Mex develops. It’s not necessarily Mexican food. It’s not necessarily Texas food. It’s Tex-Mex. Some people love it, some people don’t, but the idea is it’s based on the foundation of the culture.

What that’s made me think of is it’s interesting that we’ve been talking about digital real estate. A lot of times, where you can make an analog between digital real estate and real-world real estate is how much traffic there is. If there’s a lot of traffic and the physical location, that’s great. That drives the price up of that piece of physical real estate. If there’s a lot of traffic in a virtual location, that drives up the price of that virtual space.

Money always follows the cool. Click To Tweet

What’s interesting to me about what you’re saying is what makes that virtual space more appealing. To track the traffic is culture. It’s like, “What’s going on there? What’s exciting? What’s interesting to look at? What’s interesting to listen to?” We’ve seen it throughout the years with cultures and various large cities and urban areas. You see this happen over and over again. A very rich culture moves in when it’s inexpensive monetarily. The culture gets enriched, then the real estate price drives up, and everybody wants to be there. That’s really fascinating.

Historically, it’s exactly right. To piggyback on that, money always follows the cool. People want to be associated with the culture like movers and the trendsetter. A lot of times, those are the people who are anti-culture. They can’t find jobs and something to express so they end up in these places like a Soho with these warehouses. What comes right after that is the money. It becomes trendy, prices necessarily go up, and the people that made it cool end up leaving.

It makes me think about Busboys and Poets. Jeff and I are from DC and that’s been a cultural institute for as long as you can imagine. Wherever there’s Busboys and Poets, there’s a lot of development. Who created Busboys and Poets are artists and they’ve been great about keeping their prices reasonable, making sure the entire community is part of that environment. We’ve had many good meals at Busboys and Poets over the years.

That’s what culture is about. The things that are remembered. Culture is taxed to nostalgia, the things that make you feel comfortable. Culture is important to me. As a Jamaican, to simply put out, traveling the world, I understand what a simple shift an accent is. If you see me, you feel like I’m African-American but I don’t necessarily identify as African-American. I’m Jamaican-American. It’s different. My culture is something that I cherish but since a lot of us have been born in the States, we have now created this thing called a Jamerican. We are rooted in the culture but we like things a little bit more first world so it makes us a little more detached. When we go back to the island, we’re too Yankee to be a YArdie, but then in America, we’re too Yardie to be a Yankee. That was the straddle I had to go down.

I understand this much when I was in Dubai, Paris or something else, when people hear a Jamaican accent, everything changes. Whether I talk about Bob Marley, Cool Runnings or the Jamaican man that broke them hearts. That could be the thing. That’s what culture is. When I look at it, people will be able to sit on people’s couches and sit for months with a doctor to talk them through their life trauma just to get a smile and a good feel. If I can do that with an accent, that right there to me seems like there’s something monetizable there. I was like, “NFT is the best chance for us to get involved and mint ourselves.”

Let’s spend some time talking about innovation and culture in Puerto Rico, crypto, art, and curating the Caribbean. What has your experience been and how has it influenced your thinking on how to elevate local culture?

I’ve been in Puerto Rico right after Marias because as a child of the Caribbean, the goal was to come down and help. Before that, I was in Jamaica with my family working in a business. We own some land over on the North Coast. It did a lot to help improve the Jamaican Island. We ended up coming of age to be able to focus on the business so we wanted to develop. I did one of the cardinal sins. That’s what I advise innovators to do at this point. I came down like a Jamerican. You know what you should do and not understand what underground politics meant and what the movement was about. I came in knowing better. I came in with Fortune 50 companies working with me, with $700 an hour lawyers. All you’re doing is coming down and ruffling feathers, not because they don’t see the benefit but it’s all about how you present yourself. The optics is important.

In the Caribbean, if you understand this much, we will cut our nose to spite our face because our pride is what we have so when you’re gone, we’re still there. That was something that I witnessed and I understood. This goal here in Puerto Rico, the stakes are at their highest because there’s so much real movement that can happen. I found myself in the place to be able to speak to the innovators that are coming down. Most of them are coming down to save taxes but the thing is these are winners. These are people who do and the Caribbean culture is counterintuitive. You can’t come down with a full head of steam because we will slow you down. This is like going back in time.

I was at lunch with one of the guys that created the act that created all these tax incentives. My observation talking to him is that’s the initial hook. It’s similar to crypto. It’s making money and saving money. Those things are nice but then there’s some magic that happens, some dust that flies through the air and wraps you up. You see the potential and more. It was a brilliant strategy for Puerto Rico to create those incentives to get everyone to look at something differently. A couple of follow-ups too. I’ve already realized that if people are coming down here to save money on taxes, they usually don’t stick around. They come for a little bit but they’re not going to last 1 or 2 years once they see a lot of work has to be done here. On the other hand, while there are people coming down here to save on taxes, the people that are sticking around more than not are feeling invested in integrating the culture into the better life that people in this area might want. They’re trying to improve infrastructure or build a society in a way in which it benefits everyone. That’s very interesting.

Ultimately, the only thing I would like to say on top of that is we’re talking to people who are successful. At this rate, I don’t care about your success. I care about you as a person. The idea is that anybody necessarily needs to come down and improve, more than people need to come down and see what’s going on and support. Everyone here is trying to improve themselves. Nobody is not trying to improve.

NFT Major Dream | NFT Culture Movie

NFT Culture Movie: Culture is the lifeblood of any vibrant civilization. It’s how you talk, eat, or dress.

**Jeff and I have a term for that. It’s called the Good Idea Bouquet. **

Do you know what we should have been? I’m like, “My G, hold on, chill and relax. You’re right. We should. Don’t tell anybody that though.” Ask and see what they’re doing and quietly supply money. At the end of the day, you’re still doing good where you come from. You only have to do six months or half the year here, which most people operate on that. I’m one of those people. I live here full-time because we all need a big homie on the ground. It’s not like everybody comes six months and then leaves six months. Everybody comes at different times. You need to have at least a constant down here and that’s where I found myself.

**The other thing I want to call back to because I find it fascinating, and then I have a question that’s related to the next step. Going back to you talking about speaking in a different accent, we might even have some B-roll to add as supposed to the movie. You met a friend of ours, Elliot. We were all hanging out. He knew that he had a common connection to a culture that you had. He actually started speaking your language. It was impressive the way that you two immediately solidified a connection. I’m happy to have been able to see that to illustrate what I’m talking about. I’m going to hit the next question here. If you could tell us about the Caribbean Art Mob and how that empowers artists. **

The Caribbean Art Mob is a movement. It’s funny because I had a real conversation about this because we’re doing the branding and getting it out there what it is. On the islands, we have a love affair with the mafia, big families with a way of being that combine that classic debonair vibe, that masculine where your families felt safe, and swashbuckling adventurer that was looking for a treasure in the Caribbean. That adventurer who’s willing to jump out there on the island. When I look into it, violence has always started with the mob.

When we talk about taking that culture, you need to be able to do it in a way that elicits an inclusive, helpful, yet stern, forceful and measured way of being. Don Corleone was very understated. With a look, things happen. That’s what we want to be here in the Caribbean. We want to be someplace where people and artists feel trusted. That they can trust us but we can be a bridge to that artist’s pool that they’re looking for because every emerging artist wants to be recognized. Right now, we find that the best place for a lot of these artists to be is with a crew that is looking to educate, uplift, support, fight for, and who is savvy enough to maneuver those at high levels.

It’s interesting. I happened to be watching some footage of Spike Lee at Cannes, which has been going on. I forget the title but he was given a position that became the first black person to have this position of leadership at the Cannes Film Festival. It’s fascinating to me. I heard him calling out politicians in various countries as gangsters. I thought that was fascinating. It’s taking that term which has been used in so many different scenarios and using it for a pejorative term when it comes to the type of insider politics and leadership that’s happening in various countries.

Bullying. You can bully with information. We keep things apart. I’ve always been fascinated with repurposing words. In the hood, we had to grow up hearing things about ourselves and still having to go through that and coming out of that. That’s because we didn’t believe these things about ourselves. You could call me whatever you want but if you’re not calling me my name, you’re not talking to me. The aspect of me saying this is a mob is because the people who have been on the outside normally end up being the mob but because we are a community. Let’s mob up. Let’s mob out. We’re mobbing. Let’s roll together. It’s unity.

**Community is everything when it comes to the creator, culture, NFTs, and all the cool stuff that you’re cooking up. **

It doesn’t matter without community.

Let’s take a step back for a second. We’re here talking about so many impactful elements of culture, community and art. The bridge to the technology side of that is NFTs. What was your introduction to NFTs? How did the idea for a movie about it come about?

When bringing in cultures, you need to be able to do it in a way that elicits inclusiveness. Click To Tweet

Two things. At first, my induction into the NFT world was a few years ago. One of my dear friends came to me. He’s a top blockchain guy. He came to me with this sports project because he had been working with a bunch of retired NFL players and they didn’t know how to monetize their life after. He’s like, “You need to start planning for retirement. You need to get into this NFT space.” I don’t even know if he called it NFT but it was a way to create these digital collectibles. I’m bringing it to some of my basketball player friends and my brother who plays professional basketball down in Australia. I’m bringing it to him and then he introduced me to folks.

All of them are looking at me, “Why would I need that? I’ve got my fans.” A Black Swan event happens and now everybody’s like, “How can I monetize my fans?” NFT is what everybody wants to do. You have the NBA Top Shot. You have these things. Timing is what it’s all about. A few years ago, I started learning about that. Fast forward to me sitting down with Jeff Crane, the producer of NFT the Movie. Barely a conversation went down and then he ended up having another conversation with Ken Bozak. All of a sudden, “We got NFT the Movie.” He buys a domain for $12 and stuff like that. The next thing you know, a movement is happening because of the community.

We understand that we have some amazing people in the crypto space that are here in Puerto Rico. This is a hotbed. As my partner, Zach, normally says, “This is a Cambrian explosion of the future and we have all of these world leaders and innovators stacked right on top of each other.” I’m sitting here like a kid in a candy store. We’re sitting there having a conversation. The beautiful thing about it is that you get to break bread and talk to people as people. The movie is about that uniqueness that Puerto Rico is causing.

We’ll have a chance to chat with Jeff. I’m excited to see this movie come to life. I know you guys are doing the Festival Circuit. That would be exciting. You mentioned at some point to me the connection between Brock Pierce and NFT the Movie. How does that come together? How did the election and Brock’s running for office fit in? What does that all have to do with NFTs? Put these pieces together for us.

There are many smarter people out there that could probably put this thing together but I’ll give it a try. Brock Pierce is one of the lead thought leaders in the crypto blockchain, freedom, individuality movement. He started off as a child actor but since then, he’s been an advocate for a lot of the people who have been on the outside. When we talk about voting and we talk about NFTs, what we’re talking about is provenance and identity, “Are you you?” “Yes, you are as long as we can know that.” When we talk about voting, especially in this country in this past election, there’s a lot of accusatory things about the legitimacy of voting. As far as I can see, NFTs are the best way to at least make sure you’re talking to somebody that you’re talking to.

With Brock being such a futurist, he’s somebody who has been able to see around corners for many years. I thank him all the time for being able to take shots because when you’re doing something that’s disruptive, things are going to come at you from all sides. He takes it on the chin with a grin and keeps going so I commend him for that. He came up to me and I’m like, “I’m focusing,” because I still have a farm project, an agriculture project, and I focus on mushrooms, microgreens and that stuff. Brock knows me into doing that, cooking, fitness and all of that. I’m like, “Brock, I’m doing NFTs. I’m an NFT man.”

He sat with me for about three hours trying to convince me not to, and how hard this is going to be because I told him how I’m trying to move the culture and the industry in the Caribbean. It’s not like he’s trying to get me to not do it but as somebody that has been doing it for so long and has felt all of them coming at you from all sides, he cares about me. He’s like, “If you want to do mushrooms, I’ve got you. Let’s do that.” I’m like, “This is the purpose, the focus, and what this blood is pumping into my veins to do. I’m a son of the Caribbean and if I can get back and help that by being in this small group of people who understand this space, that’s what I get to do.” He gave me love, a hug and was like, “I’ve got your back.” This is why we get to do an interview here in his place because it’s love and support. It’s always been that. He will tell you, I’ve never asked him for anything. The only thing I’ve always asked is access because as soon as I figure out what makes sense, we’re going to take it to Jamaica.

**We’re in a monastery in old San Juan right next to one of the major government offices. **

We’re right next to the governor. The governor lives behind us.

It’s a beautiful building. I was here in 2018 when it was purchased. This place has been restored. We’ll share some pictures of our background with the readers at home too because it is a special building.

NFT Major Dream | NFT Culture Movie