lthomson@medicinehatnews.com
Local Indigenous artist Soncho Austin is on a journey to highlight Canadian musicians and hopes to help support Indigenous reconciliation with profits from his artwork.
Austin, 30 years old, said he has been drawing since he could hold a crayon and hasn’t stopped since.
“My grandma has my first picture framed from when I was three. It’s a green scribble and is supposedly a fire truck,” Austin laughed. “All through high school I took art and it was the class that I excelled at… After high school, I struggled for about 10 years to try and find a way to make a living with my art, which is very difficult.”
A few years ago, Austin’s wife encouraged him to focus on art full time. He was experienced in Photoshop and began to sketch digitally. He reached out to some rappers in Calgary and offered free cover art, after which he got more requests for the same.
Digital album artwork is Austin’s “bread and butter” but he also does pet portraits.
“I’ve been doing memorial photos for people that have passed away,” said Austin. “I’ve actually had a lot of friends die in the last three or four years, so I’ve been doing a lot of memorial pieces.”
In March of 2021, Soncho heard about NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, a type of crypto-currency. Artwork can be posted as NFTs, with royalties that apply to every sale.
“It’s been a way for artists to really take control of their works of art.”
Austin used his graphic design connections and reached out to musicians all over the country and began his debut collection, a Canadian musician series of trading card NFTs.
Austin makes different versions of each card. The silver version has 10 editions, gold has three and the super rare card is a single edition. The musician gets all the profits from the sale of the super rare, as well as the first gold.
“I’ve been doing research and as far as I can tell, nobody else has ever made a Canadian musician trading card NFT yet.”
The first card Austin made was for local rapper Dougie, who has been making music for three years and has over 150,000 Spotify streams. Dougie will be dropping his first album at the end of this year.
“The NFT stuff Soncho is doing is pretty new to me, but I am all for learning new things so I am excited to be a part of it,” Dougie said.
Austin is half Indigenous, his grandfather was part of the Plains Cree Tribe. He says everything that has come to light about residential schools has resonated with him.
“My grandpa didn’t get a birth certificate until he was 15,” Austin said. “His mom hid him when he was born for 15 years so that he wouldn’t get taken to a residential school and he was so scared to pass on the language and the traditions that my mom didn’t know any of it. She had to try and learn some stuff for herself from when I was young and that’s what I was able to learn. It’s been pretty tough.”
Austin says he would like to use some of the profits from his Canadian musician NFT card sales to support more Indigenous education in the city.
“I have a passion to help indigenous youth overcome barriers and this will continue to be a part of my life’s mission,” said Austin. “I will take a percentage of any profits made and donate them to a charity focused on truth and reconciliation efforts being made with residential school sites across Canada.”
You can see Austin’s work on his website http://www.sonchoaustin.ca. His Canadian musician series can be found here:
https://opensea.io/collection/canadian-musician-series.
