Meet The Disruptors: Sammy Arriaga On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Create goals for yourself — Make a vision board and fill it up with goals and accomplishments you’d like to achieve in a year, two years, 5 years, etc. It’s a great way to keep you inspired and hungry to keep going.
As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sammy Arriaga.
Raised in Miami on the eclectic beats that filled the streets, Sammy Arriaga was born behind the mic.
The bilingual singer/songwriter has garnered over 30M+ streams worldwide, 400k followers on TikTok & 12 years of experience in the music industry, The 30-year-old singer songwriter now finds himself serenading those roaming around the blockchain.
Sammy’s first Music NFT project “METAGIRL” released in February 2022 sold out after reaching the 1500 milestone. Due to his hard-working nature, Sammy is already working on the next Music NFT for his next web3 love song “PIXELATED”.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
It all started when a close friend from back home made me aware of the space. He had already been pretty immersed in the space and he suggested I start learning about tokenizing my music as an NFT. I had a handful of crypto at the time but wasn’t very educated on blockchain technology. Jumping into Twitter Spaces really changed the game for me and allowed me to learn so much about web3 by simply joining several communities and connecting with new people all over the world.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
Creating NFTs has allowed me to distribute my music in a brand new way while still retaining complete ownership of my music. By creating a music NFT, It’s allowed my supporters to invest in me but also grow with me for the first time. An NFT from my collection could potentially grow in value over time as I start growing as a music artist; Something that didn’t exist in web2 platforms such as Spotify and Apple. The modern day fan is no longer just a consumer, they’re now an investor.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
When I first started, I fell in love with web3 pretty quickly but in the process, I lost track of sleep and hydration. My nature is that when I discover something new that catches my eye, I study it and do my best to master it til it runs me dry. It felt like discovering a diamond mine that was right in front of us all along.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
Some of my mentors include my childhood friend and music collaborator Lalo, who actually was the one to make me aware of the NFT space early on. Some others include Katherine Boiciuc, Bill Starkov & Steve Kim, who are also very established leaders in the web3 space themselves. They embraced me during my first days, baby stepped me into the space by introducing me to their communities and helped catapult me in ways no one else did.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
Like you stated, disruption can be perceived as both a positive or a negative. But I’ve always found it fun to go against the grain and change things up a bit for everyone around me. It’s a creative challenge for myself and allows for originality. It creates a new vibe, a new energy that others aren’t used to. As a music artist, It’s really easy to get drowned out by all the thousands of new songs dropping everyday. But if I pull out some new bells and whistles that others haven’t heard, It helps me cut through the noise. I find it fun to disrupt haha!
Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
- Squeaky wheel gets the grease — I moved to Nashville in 2011 to pursue my dream of becoming a Country Music artist while representing my Hispanic culture in a not-very diverse genre. I was relentless at first, going to every event I could, asked for everyone’s email/number and followed up, said yes to every performance I could book. If you wanna win, you gotta show up.
- Pave your own lane — This goes for anything in life. If you stick to what you’re good at and focus on originality and authenticity, you will stand out. Others can quickly sense when you’re changing simply to adapt to the times. In my opinion, It’s better to stick out like a sore thumb and be “one and only”. Be the black sheep.
- Ask questions — Every leader had someone they looked up to before them to ask questions and learn from. Don’t hesitate to ask knowledgeable leaders in your space all the questions you may have and absorb all that you can and apply it to your life in your own unique way to ultimately become a leader yourself.
- Make Time For You — I learned this the hard way due to my obsessive personality. One should always make time in their day to recenter and refocus on their physical and mental health. It’s very easy to lose track and become heavily immersed in something you love. But don’t forget your body is your temple and nothing matters unless YOU are in good shape and giving it your all.
- Create goals for yourself — Make a vision board and fill it up with goals and accomplishments you’d like to achieve in a year, two years, 5 years, etc. It’s a great way to keep you inspired and hungry to keep going.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
This next project is gonna be even more exciting! The follow up single is called PIXELATED, which is about the concept of digital love. With this Music NFT, we’re gonna be combining generative art with generative music. By producing 10 different versions of the same song, it’ll also create more anticipation during the minting process. I’ve always loved pixel art as well so I’m excited to combine my love for music with that art style.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Just go for it” — My whole life I’ve been pretty wild at heart. I’m one that goes with the wind and chooses to do whatever my heart wants. Although family and friends warned me about the tough path music was gonna be, I ignored all warnings and roadblocks and just went for it. I myself get an adrenaline rush when I’m faced with a new challenge. When I dropped the METAGIRL Music NFT, I honestly didn’t know what to expect but I just said yolo and just did it and it turned out to be greater than I EVER imagined.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
I would throw the world’s largest pizza party. Who doesn’t love pizza?
How can our readers follow you online?
If anyone would like to follow me on my wild NFT journey, I am on Twitter as @SammyArriaga — As well as on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, where I post new music and other fun content! Thank you so much.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
