Iris Nevins Creates Black NFT Brand to 'Rebalance Power' in the Marketplace

CNBC reported 29-year-old Iris Nevins and her team have launched a new NFT brand (non-fungible token or digital item that can be sold and bought online). The brand is focused on Black art and elevating Black creatives in the NFT space. Nevins told CNBC she found NFT’s to be a more effective way to promote artists instead of selling their prints online.

Nevins studio, Umba Daima, is aimed to manage artists and create a marketplace community, according to CNBC. A few sub-brands have also been released underneath Umba Daima including Black NFT Art, the NFT Roundtable Podcast as well as The Unseen Gallery.

From CNBC:

“We noticed that the artists that were having a lot of success had these really strong communities around them that were promoting or reposting on social media or participating in their drops,” Nevins says. The studio launched Black NFT Art “in an attempt to create that kind of experience for Black artists.”

One example of Umba Daima’s success is artist Andre Oshea, who the company managed for about four and a half months. His NFT sales were low when he first started working with Umba Daima, but now, “Andre Oshea is one of the top Black artists in the space,” Nevins says.

CNBC reported the brand made 140,000 in revenue in 2021, sub-brands included. However, she and her team volunteer their efforts to upholding this platform. “We’re a good way from being profitable, but I’m hoping that it can happen soon,” she told CNBC.

Another mission for Umba Damia is to diversify the NFT space. Nevins told CNBC it is not only hard to find Black artists but also ones who have a significant number of sales. Additionally, since this digital space is exclusive to artists who have applied or been invited in, many Black artists tend to be left out.

“That’s problematic because if you’re not actively building relationships with Black people in the space, how are you going to get Black artists on the platform?” Nevins told CNBC. Nevins also said marketplaces can benefit from partnering with grassroots organizers like herself.

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Looking ahead, Nevins is excited to see growth of Black-owned NFT platforms, including The Well and Disrupt Art, this year. She’s also excited to see more film, music and dance NFTs in the market.

In fact, Umba Daima’s first one-of-one NFT drop is slated for February, and will include work from popular artists like Shaylin Wallace and Dominique Weiss, among others.

“We want to be able to help all of the artists that we collaborate with get their flowers and grow through that process,” she says. “I think most people’s association with NFTs is CryptoPunks. They haven’t actually sat down and looked at what regular artists are creating.”

We don’t realize just how many spaces are created with intentions of keeping people of color and Black people out. In those cases, we need more people like Nevins who choose to balance out the playing field by creating their own. Now, Black artists have a space that elevates their work and provides them the mentorship they deserve to grow in their craft.