World-renowned Artist BUA Launches NFT Honoring 50th Anniversary of Hip-Hop

Artist, author, speaker, and entrepreneur Justin BUA’s, The BUA Lab, and Supermojo, the platform for an easier NFT experience, announced a partnership for the upcoming NFT collection—The MC. Together, BUA and Supermojo merge web3 with digital art to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Hip-Hop and mark the beginning of the BUAverse.

BUA’s first digital art collection, The MC, is a series of 1,011 uniquely designed characters, on the XRP Ledger (XRPL), an open-source, energy-efficient, decentralized blockchain led by a global developer community. BUA, internationally known for his best-selling fine art prints, is creating this collection seeking to imbue choice and digital freedom to its collectors giving them new ways to express themselves and share with their community. He started his creative journey in the world of commercial art, designing and illustrating a myriad of projects including merchandise and advertising campaigns as well as developing the look and feel of EA Sports, video games NBA Street and NFL Street.

Supermojo is the technology platform behind the launch of the collection, designed to make digital assets more accessible for everyone. Founded by CEO Amir Sarhangi and Head of Product Craig DeWitt, two former executives at Ripple, Supermojo allows users to purchase an NFT with only a credit card. The white-labeled platform allows artists and creators to mint NFTs on their own websites, creating a better purchase experience for fans and collectors. Supermojo plans to build on this mission of creating a seamless NFT experience for more users by partnering with individual artists and creators, as well as NFT marketplaces and global brands.

“In the history of the world, artists have never had such a crazy opportunity to not just survive on their art but to thrive with their digital art,” said BUA. “Hip-hop has been rooted in innovation since its inception. From the Block Party to the Blockchain, we’re seeing digital art allow collectors and fans to explore the world of art from the comfort of their own homes, without having to travel to various galleries in different locations. With the BUAverse, I’m providing the education necessary to make these new art forms tangible so artists, both young and established, can see what the limitless possibilities are.”

Along with the NFT collection, the BUAverse will be a metaverse in which the NFTs function as an access pass to this digital world created by BUA. To be launched in the future, the BUAverse metaverse experience will give NFT holders the chance to receive a physical sculpture of NFTs, plus other digital and real-world perks.

“We’re excited to be able to finally announce our collaboration with BUA, whose ethos on education for blockchain aligns with that of Supermojo’s,” said DeWitt. “Supermojo is on a mission to work with both individual creators and large marketplaces to build an easy on-ramp for fan communities to band together using this new wave of technologies to its fullest.”

The BUA Lab launch is supported by Ripple’s Creator Fund, a $250M commitment to help creators with the financial, creative, and technical support needed to explore and craft NFTs and other tokenization projects on the XRP Ledger. The XRPL is championed for its long-standing reliability, low cost, instant settlement, and built-in royalty structures for NFTs, making it the blockchain of choice for Bua NFTs and the BUAverse.

“Education is an important factor when bringing new technology to new users, as the average hip-hop, an inner-city kid might not have access to technology. Thus, a thorough understanding of what blockchain technology, NFTs, and Web3 can offer is essential for kids and artists of all kinds to truly maximize their creative potential. Hip-Hop was started by a bunch of kids, young creatives birthed the culture. Now we can bring technology to the new pioneers and game over,” BUA said.

The MC will be a collection of 1,011 unique NFTs, plus 11 golden tickets that are each derivative of BUA’s famous painting, “The MC.” They will go on sale on March 16, at 12 p.m. CT on buaverse.com. Minting purchases can be made with a credit card and secondary sales are available to purchase with crypto at XRPL NFT exchanges.

ABOUT PARTNERSHIPS: SUPERMOJO.

Supermojo allows creators and brands to bring the magic of NFTs to their superfans through a seamless purchase and wallet experience. With the Supermojo platform, creators can mint an NFT collection on their own website and allow purchases with just a credit-card. Supermojo also offers seamless custody solutions and addresses mass market consumption through automatically created wallets and self-custody options – no prior cryptocurrency knowledge or crypto-wallet required for users. Supermojo’s easy checkout platform also helps marketplaces and digital storefronts improve average order size and customer conversion rates. Learn more at supermojo.com.

ABOUT The BUA Lab
The BUA Lab, founded by Justin BUA and his business partner, Darin Chavez, is a full-service studio dedicated to “next level” immersive experience-driven, web 3 and metaverse artistic integrations from the mind of BUA. The BUA Lab collaborates with agencies, creative shops, artists, studios and corporate partners on various art, design, event, visual branding, licensing, development and special projects. The BUA Lab creates inclusive integrations that express positive messaging that inspire viewers through artistic creations that capture the energy, movement and spirit of the hip-hop culture and the BUAverse.

ABOUT Ripple:
Ripple is a crypto solutions company that transforms how the world moves, manages and tokenizes value. Ripple’s business solutions are faster, more transparent, and more cost effective – solving inefficiencies that have long defined the status quo. And together with partners and the larger developer community, we identify use cases where crypto technology will inspire new business models and create opportunity for more people. With every solution, we’re realizing a more sustainable global economy and planet – increasing access to inclusive and scalable financial systems while leveraging carbon neutral blockchain technology and a green digital asset, XRP. This is how we deliver on our mission to build crypto solutions for a world without economic borders.

ABOUT XRP Ledger:
The XRP Ledger (XRPL) is an open source, public and decentralized Layer 1 blockchain led by a global developer community. It is fast, energy-efficient, and reliable. For more than ten years, it has been the blockchain best suited to enable settlement and liquidity of tokenized assets at scale. With ease of development, low transaction costs, and a knowledgeable community, it provides developers with a strong open-source foundation for executing on the most demanding projects – without impacting the XRPL’s lean and efficient feature set. XRPL enables a wide variety of services and use cases including payments, decentralized finance, and tokenization. Learn more at XRPL.org.

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About the Author

Dr. Jerry Doby Editor-in-Chief of The Hype Magazine, Media and SEO Consultant, Journalist, Ph.D. and retired combat vet. 2023 recipient of The President's Lifetime Achievement Award. Partner at THM Media Group. Member of the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture, the United States Press Agency and ForbesBLK.