BlockTalks: Culture, Tech & Innovation, with Giovanni Everduin

So I'd say, you know, I'm full-time reluctant banker, VC, part-time on-chain art collector, part-time DeFi dabbler, and part-time professional exit liquidity for meme coins.

Aren't we all? That's, that's fascinating.

And I wanna kind of double-click on the art part because, uh, you spoke a lot about music over the years, and you have your, you know, music background in hip hop and street art and all that.

I'm a metalhead.

These things have some overlap in counterculture, in being, uh, outfits and, and misfits at the same time, so...

And then obviously capturing mainstream as time goes on.

I, I just went to the Metallica concert.

Like, there's four generations of people in the audience, if not more, for the, you know, 40 years that they've been on the road and everything else.

So it, it blends in over time because it is culture, and it is powerful, and it is dragging people over time because it's just how outlets work.

Like, you, you, you let it out, right? What's your history in music? Why hip hop? How did that ultimately drag you into on-chain art? I think that parallel is so fascinating.

Let's unpack that for a little bit.

So why hip hop? I think culturally, ethnic- ethnically, culturally, my family is...

Most part of my family is, is a massive mix, but a big chunk of my family, I'd say the anchor part of my family, while I'm Dutch and I grew up there, my parents lived there for most of their lives, we're, you know, Caribbean South American.

So my mom is from Suriname.

My dad is from Aruba.

And then if you look further, you'll find African blood and, like, Indonesian and Chinese and, you know, a whole bunch of other different mixes.

Like, the first time I went to The first time I went to Chicago, uh, I was studying in Michigan, and I went to Chicago to meet a friend of mine, and we were going for a barbecue at her uncle Dick's, uh, farm.

And Uncle Dick, when he first, when he first met me, and she was explaining to him... 'Cause he's like, "Well, where's this kid from?" You know, I was still a kid at the time-ish.

And she was explaining everything, and he goes like, "I get it.

He's like Heinz." You know, the ketchup.

Put all these flavors in and something tasty comes out.

[laughs]

Nobody really knows what's in it.

But so Caribbean culture, I'd say, you know, is very, I'd say black culture as such, and so hip-hop is a big part of that.

In that context, really we felt like, you know, my family, we can really relate to, you know, the struggle and the spoken word, and obviously Suriname in particular as a country, long history of slavery.