Following YouTuber Logan Paul and artist Mike Winkelmann, Canadian singer, songwriter and record producer Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, known professionally as The Weeknd, has caught on to the trend of non-fungible tokens (NFT). Teaming up with Nifty Gateway, the singer said the sale will have two main components, which are an unreleased song and a limited edition art developed by Strange Loop Studios.
Excited to announce that my first NFT drop is taking place on Saturday at 2:00 pm EST on @niftygateway. The collection will feature new music and limited edition art. I developed the artwork with Strange Loop Studios pic.twitter.com/627BO4JekK
— The Weeknd (@theweeknd) March 31, 2021
Nifty Gateway is the marketplace that worked with Beeple to auction off a piece of digital art for $6.6 million earlier this year. Sharing his collaboration with the marketplace on his social media, the 2021 Super Bowl headliner tweeted that the collectible will have a new song and a limited edition artwork. The new song is an NFT exclusive piece, meaning that it won’t be made available on any digital platform in the future.
The auction will feature a flash sale of different visual art pieces, each with random and filtered clips of the song. A 24-hour auction of never-before-seen artwork, accompanied by the song in its full and unfiltered version, will follow.
