Meet Raresama Artist - Ep.#04
Our 4th guest is 420kusama! He is a passionate artist with a variety of minted NFTs, all of them being really significant and representing Cannabis culture! Let’s chat with him!
Hello 420Kusama, could you share some details about yourself?
My name is Kevin. But most people in the crypto/nft world know me as 420Kusama. I live in the Netherlands and I am 30 years young. Since 2022 I have a number of weed related NFT collections. I work in the concrete sector. But I am also busy with 3 small start-up companies. In addition, I like to spend time with friends, family and you can find me regularly in the gym.
When did you first get interested in cryptocurrencies and what motivated you to explore NFTs?
A friend of mine @Duxxz_ was the one who told me about crypto and Polkadot. That was at the end of 2021. At the beginning of 2022 I decided to start building my own NFT collection and community. It was very accessible to begin with. I made the first collection with paint. I created a new twitter account and email account. The only charges I incurred were for uploading the NFTs and verifying the account. These costs were very low through Singular and Raresama.
What was the biggest obstacle you faced when you first started working with NFTs?
The biggest challenge for me was building a community. An active group of followers through a social media account who are interested in the style and arts you offer. In many countries, weed is not yet legal and people have a very negative opinion of weed because of the government. Fortunately, there turned out to be many users of cannabis in the NFT world, which resulted in many followers. Besides, I knew that my drawing talent was not very good, but I decided to start and learn along the way.
What’s your goal when making art?
My goal of a piece of art is a simple image that is cannabis related and evokes an emotion or can make you laugh.
Could you explain your step-by-step approach to creating an NFT, starting from the initial idea to the final product?
Usually it goes like this. I smoke a joint first. Then I come up with a topic for the NFT. This could be a job, a sport, an event and so on. Then I will think about how I can apply that subject in my style and art. When I have come up with these things, I look for examples on the internet to get a better idea of what I want to make. At that moment I start drawing. When the art is ready, it can be uploaded to the marketplace.
You recently released your own NFT collection on the Raresama NFT marketplace. Can you provide more details about your collection and the inspiration behind it?
In the generation 1 NFTs on Singular I had drawn joints and weed buds with a face in them. I thought it would be a nice idea to make a collection with people with a weed top for a head. This is how the idea of 420Budheads was born. The collection consists of 150 NFTs of which 15 are rare and the rest are common. The collection includes several collaborations with other well-known collections and individuals. Each art is 1/1.
What was your experience with the minting process on the Raresama NFT platform?
Since I only minted 1 or 2 NFTs at a time each time it goes very smoothly and without any problems. If you want to mint large collections at once, keep in mind that this can take a lot of time.
How important is community involvement and feedback to you, and do you have any plans for your NFT holders in the future?
Community engagement is very important to me. I regularly ask in groups and people with experience what their opinion is on certain topics such as making a club treasury. We did this on Singular, but omitted it on raresama on the advice of other people to keep it simple. However, Donnie Big Bags has indicated that it will provide utility for the Raresama artists. More will be revealed about this later.
Do you have a favorite artist on Raresama that you would be interested in collaborating with?
There are many good artists, each in their own way. But who is definitely one of the best artists in my opinion is Ruben Topia with his Rare Topia on Raresama. I would definitely like to work with this artist who also happens to be Dutch. But I understand that it is difficult to combine our styles.
What do you believe about the future of the Raresama marketplace?
I'm positive about the future of Raresama, because the community behind it is very fanatical and I expect many new users and artists will be added in the next bull run. Due to the voting, many bad collections will not get through, so that the quality of the collections on raresama will be quite high.
Is there an NFT that you would like to own but don't, and if so, why?
Moonsama #987. This NFT entitles me to vote in the Moonsama community. With this Moonsama NFT I can stake more $SAMA than with an Exosama NFT. Additionally, a Moonsama NFT provides 10x more gganbu (game revenue) during Carnage in Minecraft.
What can we anticipate from you in the year 2023?
In 2023 we will see at the end of the year who is left at the end of the bear market of all artists from the previous bull market. Many artists have retired in the past year and many collections have disappeared. A good time to see which collections have continued to build despite the setbacks and which have given up. This says a lot about the team behind the project. A good time to see where you want to invest your time and money before we get another hype in 2024.
A big thanks to 420Kusama for being part of MRA. It was really great!
Check all the links to his profile:
Twitter
Raresama
I hope you all enjoyed this interview with 420 as much as I did! Leave your thoughts and feedback below! Until the next one 🍻
Thank you all for reading ✌