ZABAL GAMEZ Workshop w/Nemesis

A creator-track conversation with Nemesis - a rapper, singer, poet, composer and producer from Zambia - about what it actually costs to build a music career from Lusaka. It starts with a first memory of music (a dad pulling up playing Tupac, a photo at three years old on a granddad's lap holding a guitar) and the women who set the standard: a single mother raising three kids, a grandmother who was the country's first neurosurgeon, another who nursed in the Copperbelt. Then the hard part. Web2 distribution paid nothing, so a first crypto onboarding in 2022 ended with a minted song, zero dollars and two years away from it. The way back in was WaveWarZ Zambia and Songchain, where Nemesis was the first Lusaka artist onboarded and won - then joined the original WaveWarZ, earned 0.3 ETH, and lost roughly 30,000 US dollars converting to the wrong currency and losing the seed phrase. The session is candid about AI too: Suno felt like cheating on a partner for a writer who writes their own music, so it got a month and then boredom. What is being built now is WaveWarZ Africa - the same idea, for African artists - and the constraint named throughout is bandwidth: "it is hard to even do this internet thing." She competed as n3m and won the artist track of Season 1 - the workshop is a creator-track conversation, the championship was in artist, and both are hers.

• Web2 distribution paid nothing and the first crypto attempt paid nothing either - a song was minted in 2022 and the return was zero dollars, which bought two years of staying away.
• The second attempt worked because a person did the onboarding, not a platform: a friend explained WaveWarZ Zambia and Songchain step by step.
• Being early is not the same as being safe. 0.3 ETH arrived and roughly 30,000 US dollars was lost to a wrong currency conversion and a lost seed phrase.
• AI tools were resisted for a specific reason, not a vague one: for a writer who writes their own music, handing over control felt like cheating on a partner. Suno got a month, then boredom.
• Connectivity is the actual constraint. "It is hard to even do this internet thing" - and TIA, this is Africa, is said as a fact rather than a joke.
• WaveWarZ Africa is the thing being built - the WaveWarZ idea, aimed at African artists.