Everyone who gives a shit about NFTs is currently losing their shit over Bored Ape Yacht Club, the insanely hyped digital art collective making status-symbol avatars of cartoon apes and selling them for millions of dollars. BAYC is doing Rolling Stone covers. They’re throwing parties with the Strokes and Beck. Hackers are stealing their apes. Jimmy Fallon just bought one. And now, apparently, BAYC is getting into the music business.

Billboard reports that Timbaland is launching a new metaverse-based entertainment company called Ape-In Productions, or AIP, which will use Bored Ape Yacht Club characters to perform music and sell products as NFTs. Buying an AIP NFT will grant access to exclusive perks like merchandise, events, studio sessions, custom art, and concerts in the metaverse.

“We’ve built a new entertainment platform in the metaverse that puts creative control and long-term ownership back in the hands of artists, a concept that is incredibly important to us,” Timbaland says. AIP’s first “signee” is TheZoo, a hip-hop group featuring Bored Apes Lincoln Aperaham, Safari Ferrari, Oro Blanco, MoMoney, Wurdz Smith, and Congo. They’ll release their Timbaland-produced debut single “ApeSh!t” along with a new NFT on Wednesday.

Universal Music Group is also getting into the Bored Ape game. UMG’s 10:22PM label has announced an NFT “supergroup” called KINGSHIP made up of four BAYC apes. So like, a more literal Gorillaz. They’ll record music for streaming platforms and perform in the metaverse. “You can call it an NFT band, or think of them as characters,” Celine Joshua, the head of 10:22, said in an interview. “The characters will come to life. The apes will come to life.”

https://twitter.com/SuperRare/status/1458512448604884996