Hume Acquires Grammy-Winning, Multi-Platinum Founded Blocktones

• The acquisition will bring Blocktones’ open-sourced generative audio collections to the Hume platform, enabling new pathways for its virtual artists and novel ways for creators to create open-sourced music beats.

• Multi-platinum and grammy award-winning for artists like Saweetie and The Chainsmokers, Blocktones Co-Founder Gino Borri, aka “Gino The Ghost,” will join Hume as President of Blocktones & Hume A&R.

• Hume and Blocktones previously partnered for a songwriting camp during Art Basel Miami Beach, which marked the first time that a web3 record label leveraged open-sourced beats.

Hume, a Web3 entertainment company pushing the boundaries of virtual artists and music, today announced that it has acquired Blocktones, a Web3 music startup founded by Grammy-winning, multi-platinum producer Gino Borri, “Gino The Ghost,” and industry-leading show designer and director Michael Mauro. Mauro has collaborated with some of the biggest names in the music industry including Diplo, Lil Uzi Vert and Megan Thee Stallion.

Launched in 2022, Blocktones is a multimedia interactive NFT project that fuses generative audio and 3D images of the industry’s biggest producers and renowned digital artists, like 7x Grammy-winning producer, Federico Vindver, with special guests Timbaland, Illmind, and Trap Money Benny. The mixed-media collection of full-length, unique radio-ready tracks allows NFT holders to own the IP associated with their beats.

Blocktones’ first collection was featured in Billboard as a top 10 music NFT and is one of the first large-scale Music NFT projects that gave full IP ownership rights to the NFT owner. Blocktones expands Hume’s reach throughout web3 and the traditional music industry while scaling its ambitions to help creators launch their own global metastars. As more people enter the web3 and virtual artist space, Blocktones open sourced beats could become a musical building block for new entrants.

“The acquisition of Blocktones demonstrates our commitment to continuously push the boundaries of what the future of entertainment looks like while bringing Gino further into the fabric of everything we do. Blocktones redefines what it means to own a beat,” said David Beiner co-founder and CEO of Hume. “Not only does Gino understand our goal to create groundbreaking virtual artists, but he also understands the need to push the boundaries of the music industry along the way. We’re honored that he’ll officially be part of the team.”

Hume, which was founded by a producer and songwriter for artists like Selena Gomez, G-Eazy, Aloe Blacc and Demi Lovato, is bringing virtual artists mainstream and redefining the way fans engage with their favorite virtual characters. It is a web3 record label and an in-house entertainment studio that recently launched successful web3 virtual artists angelbaby and Clio with others coming soon.

A Shared Vision That Pushes The Music Industry Forward

The coming together of these two companies is a natural fit. Gino Borri, the Blocktones’ co-founder who will be joining Hume as President of Blocktones & Hume A&R, is no stranger to the music industry or to Hume. From writing award-winning music for Saweetie to The Chainsmokers, Borri co-founded Blocktones with Mauro with the goal of putting the power back in the hands of the creators and fans. Recently, he executive produced the music behind Snoop Dogg’s Sandbox collection, much of the music behind FLUF World, and topped the OpenSea charts with The Otherside and All Gold Spaceship featuring Hume’s metastar angelbaby.

”Hume is leading the way, ushering the traditional music industry into a new era of music,” said Borri. “I can’t wait to get to work with the team to blend our collections and communities, and continue to disrupt the industry as we know it.”

Blocktones will open new use cases around music creation by allowing producers to create collections through its audio-generative platform. By allowing holders to do whatever they want with the IP, a Blocktone beat could be part of a hit radio song, owned by someone with no musical experience or connections.

“It’s an incredibly exciting time for the intersection of music and web3, as we have the opportunity to take Blocktones to the next level – both sonically and visually,” said Mauro. “I can’t wait to continue building and providing unique user experiences with the Hume team. Hume is primed for disruption in the music industry, and given our backgrounds, there isn’t a company better aligned for a partnership.”

In Dec. 2022, Hume and Blocktones partnered to host a songwriting camp during Art Basel Miami Beach. The camp brought together leading web3 artists Reo Cragun and Hume’s angelbaby to utilize OP3N IP Blocktones beats that they own—allowing them to evenly split the master recording and publishing shares. The 2-day camp resulted in the creation of two songs with plans to drop the singles on a web3 platform this year.

”At Hume, we believe the key to scaling Web3 is proving new use cases around Web3 ownership and music creation,” said Jay Stolar, Chief Artist Officer and co-founder of Hume. “This relationship with Blocktones is doing exactly that by presenting a new way of producing, distributing, experiencing and monetizing music within Hume. Together, we are unlocking what will soon become the future of music.”

The news comes on the heels of Hume announcing the hire of Universal Music Group and Three Six Zero alum Adrian Karvinen as the new VP of Music Business & Partnerships. Karvinen will be responsible for building culture-shifting partnerships between metastars and the world’s biggest brands to drive engaging and interactive fan experiences.

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Contact Information

Hannah Colson

Senior Account Executive

VSC for Hume

hume@vsc.co