this creator is living a life beyond measure

welcome to issue #05 of moments, our bi-weekly newsletter. if you’re new here, this is the space where we share product updates, news from our community, and a curation of the best things we’re seeing online and offline. and if you’ve been around for a while, thanks for being a member of our community. you’re among a select group of cherished friends, family, and early supporters.

this week was incredibly exciting: we launched video minting, chatted with one of the coolest emerging r&b artists in nyc, and started to lay the groundwork for paid drops 👀

so much to cover! now, let’s get into it :)

icymi, we’ve been shipping a lot of new features recently :) some of the ones that should be on your radar:

• video moments 📹 – mint any video into a moment, then share it with friends. see how our community has been leveraging it and try it out yourself

• audio minting 🔊 – take any sound and turn it into a moment you can listen to again and again - try it out here :)

• primitives selects round 3! 🏆 – selects is back again! help select the best moments minted over the past week - tap over to our instagram story to vote for your faves

after we launched audio minting, we knew video was the next step. we’ve been lucky to cultivate an incredible community of creatives, musicians, dancers, and more – and when you started asking for video, we knew we had to deliver! while we love supporting images and sounds, there was more we could unlock. video is special. there’s something magical about the hush of expectancy after you press play, waiting to be transported.

amelia, ricardo, and paul on our team concepted and built the infrastructure to support video minting and playback, fine tuning and testing each element until it ran seamlessly. and, a select group of beta users gave us feedback as we worked to refine everything (thank you!)

we’re so excited to have video live on primitives. try it out and let us know what you think :)

our featured creator this week is r&b singer-songwriter calvin ramsay, better known by his creative alias CHOBUTTA. not one to creatively limit himself, calvin is also a model, visual artist, and trained ballet and hip hop dancer. his music is effervescent and radiant, yet layered with nuance, a product of a range of influences from schubert to freddy mercury. we’re thrilled to have him as a member of the primitives community.

could you tell us a bit about yourself?

i’m originally from queens, ny. born in brooklyn, ny but my parents setup shop in queens. i started making music around the age of 15. it was a struggle trying to get there but grateful to have somewhat figured shit out.

what do you love about being a creator?

the most rewarding aspect about creating is when the mindset is fully tapped into the process. what I love about being an artist is the freedom to express whenever, wherever, however, and whatever I want to do. i’m inspired by people, places, sounds, and intelligence.

how would you describe your style? what inspires you?

growing up, i was inspired by composers like schubert, david foster, and burt bacharach. some of my favorite singers include luciano pavarotti, luther vandross, and freddy mercury.

my style of music is very funk meets r&b with a sprinkle of alternative. it’s a bit all over the place simply because of my influences but also, i tend to be a bit all over the place. for me, being a creator means life beyond measures. the ability to continue to pour out while evolving as a human is truly a gift.

how’s your experience been on primitives so far?

before signing up, I heard a lot about the concept of nfts but to me it sounded like another language. to be honest, minting on primitives was very chill. simple process with a great aesthetic. end result on 10.

where do you spend your time offline and online?

i’m mostly an offline person. i prefer to chill and be off the grid on my alone time but don’t mind a kiki here and there to come out of the bubble! I exude a ton of extrovert energy but I’m HIGH KEY an introvert. i mostly connect with other creators through instagram, friends of friends, my artist collective I'm apart of, the cs community, the girlies, and honestly anyone that’s chill enough to talk all things classical music! :)

want to collect one of calvin’s moments? we’re thrilled to share his single, breathe, minted on primitives. there’s only a few copies, so get them before they’re gone :)

our team has been going deep into curation recently, thinking about why we collect and what it says about us. we’ve also been speaking to many of you about what moments are meaningful to your sense of digital identity.

we’ll have more to share on this soon 👀 are you interested in being more involved with early product conversations? down to share more about what being a curator (or creator) means to you? we’re starting to put together a small community of power users - there’s a few spots left! shoot us a line (or a dm :) if this sounds up your alley.

what have we been consuming? the definitive look into status and culture, a true bop from skrillex, and ✨gifts✨.

as always, thanks for reading! have any feedback for us? you can always feel free to hit “reply” to this email or slide into our dms.