Today I'm thrilled to bring you this conversation with G.Love and Henbo Henning, two artists from different mediums who have come together for a special NFT Drop. Here are the details:

The first ever digital animated tour poster! Commemorating G. Love's first tour since the pandemic hit, the Juice Up Tour is about reconnecting with fans and collaborating with amazing artists. You can find the minting site here.

Version 1 features psychedelic colorways by the acclaimed illustrator, tattoo artist and overall monster maker, Henbo. The audio featured on the poster is taken from "HipHopHarpin", featuring Blues Legend, Alvin YoungBlood Hart, Chuck Treece and G.

This track will be on G's upcoming album, Philadelphia Missippi, releasing June 2022. Hip Hop Blues baby!

So first of all, I'm so excited to connect with both of you for this drop. It is innovative and beautiful, what a creative force you both are. Can you both briefly introduce yourselves to our community here today?

G LOVE: Hey AllShips Fam! I’m G.Love, musician, songwriter, visual artist, father, husband and now NFT creator and collector saving the world one show at a time! Thanks for having me I’m super stoked on this collaboration with Henbo Henning and Allships!

When we decided to do the collaboration I went immediately to Henbo’s spot Good Luck Nyc tattoo shop and got this ink for my youngest son!

HENBO: Hey Allships! I’m Henbo Henning a tattoo artist, illustrator/animator and visual artist ! I absolutely fell in love with NFTs, it feels like I was looking for something like this my whole life. I’m stoked I get to work with G on a cool unique project bringing visual art and music together! Can’t wait to share it with everyone.

Let’s dive right into the project first! Can you guys tell us a bit about what you’ve created here together and how people can get involved?

So basically G and got talking about some ideas and how to bring a tour poster to life. So we have created limited addition animated tour poster! The subject is a harmonica riding juicy juice carton monster! Soaring along with the sweet blues of G Love in a psychedelic soup of fun. It’s a feast for all the senses. This is presented by the one and only ALLSHIPS and is available at Blockparty.

It’s an absolute honor for us to present this collaborative effort- I’m all about the overlaps of creativity, especially across different mediums. And personally as someone who grew up jamming out to G Love, this is a special moment indeed.

What’s the structure for the drop ?

H: It’s definitely a special moment I can’t wait for people to see it ! I’ll let Zanzibar and G explain the structure of drop.

G: Right on so Henbo has made a magnificent G.Love and The Juice Digital Tour Poster to commemorate our first tour and being back on the road since the pandemic hit.

The G.Love and The Juice Tour poster will mint on BlockParty and will be released as 4 editions of 99 released weekly starting this Friday 3/4 at 1pm est These pieces will mint for 250 usd each and can be purchased with ETH or credit card, right from this link!

For me it’s always about pushing through boundaries, collaborating with awesome peoples and exploring new ways to be creative.

I also got to give a shout to Vlad Ginzberg, founder of BlockParty and Zanzibar as well. We had been having some brainstorming calls about my Juice Gang NFT (which is currently minting on Moonwalk) and Vlad, who is a huge music person, mentioned he wanted to do a series of digital, animated Tour Posters. I was like…. Awww yeah it’s on 😍😍😍

We also wanted to give some Utility to my Juice Gang NFT, which is a 10k generative series, so we said any Juice Gang holders would get airdropped a different version of Henbo’s piece. So can we go ahead and say that Henbo has effectively created the first ever Digital, animated Tour Poster?!? Am I jumping the gun and we making freaking history here or whaaaaat?!

G: About the music on the poster- the track is called HipHopHarpin’ and features Blues Legend Alvin YoungBlood Hart, Chuck Treece and myself on a harmonica based instrumental. That’s the HipHop Blues baby! This track is from my forthcoming album Philadelphia Mississippi which drops this June and is the follow up to my Grammy Nominated Album G.Love The Juice. We rolling man bringing that Love and working the Arts!

Sound amazing guys! So excited to see this unfold. As artists - what excites you about NFT technology?

G: Well there are a couple things... As I mentioned a new outlet for creativity and creative minds to have a new platform to work their arts on. Also as a musician and someone who has engaged in the music industry for the last 30 years and seen so many changes, I think the NFT space is going to bring a lot of power back artists both creatively and financially.

The notion of releasing music and albums as NFTs lets artists have perpetual ownership of the albums. This is extremely important right now and it’s coming full circle. You have to understand that the rug has basically been pulled out from underneath the entire music industry. Once in early 2000s the “pirating“ of music began with the Napster platform and now streaming which pays us not even pennies on the dollar. The amount of money that most artists make streaming is laughable it’s embarrassing for most of us I think.

Even if you didn’t sell millions and millions of albums, we used to make a pretty good living on royalties which are now nonexistent because people simply do not buy albums. And I’m not salty I’m just explaining the situation real talk. I think when people purchase an NFT you’re looking at a situation where Musician can make money again through their recorded works. this is important because by financially supporting music we are allowing people to continue their works which bring so much joy to the world.

There’s also many applications with ticketing i.e. to prevent scalping, authentication of memorabilia and visual arts and literally everything as my good friend Citizen Cope told me about a year and a half ago “Garrett we’re gonna be alright. I got to tell you about this new thing called NFTs!” Well that very day I went rarible and figured out how to make an NFT so actually there was an original 1/1 G.Love NFT on rarible.

And I’m not done- We are now seeing the unbelievably terrible situation with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and for Ukrainian people To be able to have stored value in both Crypto and NFTs which they can sell and use for real life applications like escaping their country and food for their babies when they can’t get regular fiat. We need peace now. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is such a terrible setback for this whole world we need peace and prosperity across this world to be able to create further technology, and further the arts.

And what do you think Henbo?

H: I think what excites me personally first of all is the community. It’s incredible- and everyone I have met has been so supportive and welcoming. It’s different from other mediums there seems to be a collective force to push and rise together and I love this, and because of this community is the reason you are getting this collaboration.

The support of ALLSHIPS and Blockparty linking G and myself together, for example. Secondly it’s probably the first time in history where an artist can create sonically or visually and put it out into the world and actually be part of something bigger that will be around forever without gatekeeping like previously happened within the art world. It’s valuable and interesting because you can add utilities, you can raise money for good causes- I feel that this is the golden age of art.

And the artist actually get paid ! Prior to NFTs, certain platforms and streaming services have reaped the rewards of their successful users but not really given anything back. But now it takes that out of the equation- you can produce something and if someone digs it they can collect it and keep It or sell it and it’s like this awesome ever-evolving creative beast. It reminds me of when I was a kid and used to trade wrestling cards like the value of a “shiny one” ( silver or gold foil) and that joy of revealing a rare card from a packet just to hold and look at you felt like champion of the world for a couple of minutes. And now you can actually own it not just have a copy but own the individual piece and that’s pretty cool.

Awesome. We're so excited to witness this drop unfold- thank you so much, both of you, for taking the time to speak with us today. Lastly- any advice for artists who are earlier on their creative journey?

G: My advice is to jump in. Dive in the pool. We are all figuring this out as we go so letssss goooooo. Much love and respect to you all and thanks so much to Dave and the Allships Crew for presenting this amazing piece! Thanks to Henbo for the amazing artwork and thanks to Blockparty for giving us the platform. Love!!

H: I would say get on Twitter, make some connections, follow your favourite artists, and just get into some spaces, listen and learn and start creating!

My theory is if you like what your doing, there is a chance that somebody else also likes it so go and take some time making something cool that could change your future ! And most of all enjoy it!