When you see an opportunity, you either charge at it and make a choice to change the way things operate, or you let it go past and wonder why you didn’t? MC Serch and Adam Schmidt are not those who would fall in the latter part of the conversation of this story. Changing the conversation is what they do, and they did that with PRTL.
PRTL stands for Portal. It is a gateway to give listeners the freedom to enjoy music with no hassle. You might ask “No hassle?” DMCA has been a large issue over the past two years with the rise of streaming platforms like YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. People have been streaming video games, music, talk shows, podcasts,… basically streaming life in general. PRTL clears all of that up with their issue free music.
DMCA means Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization. It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to copyrighted works. It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself.
“Adam and I saw a hole in the market while listening to Lo-Fi music,” Serch explains. “We both love and we’re raised on hip-hop being from Queens, NY.” (Serch being from the rap group 3rd Bass, as well as Executive Producer of Nas’ Illmatic and It Was Written, as well as numerous others) “We were listening to this new wave of music and we’re saying to ourselves what about country, or reggaetón, or bossa nova. So we created PRTL as a way for music fans who want to vibe out to amazing tracks with the ability to do so in whatever genre they love. The best part is you can use these tracks without worrying about being banned or flagged.”
Founder Adam Schmidt shares, “PRTL was created to take all of that away, but the difference is our music sounds amazing. In fact, so amazing you would want this being played in lounges, coffee shops, restaurants, entertaining friends at home or listening to our lofi bossa nova during dinner. It is elevated lofi music for the masses to enjoy carefree.”
So laid back that Snoop Dogg himself posted a video of himself chilling while listening to a PRTL lo-fi track. “Lofi is the majority style of our music however we have created a wide range of categories to listen to. Lofi, Lofi Hip Hop, Lofi Bossa Nova, Lofi Country, Lofi Chill Hop, Indie Rock, Lofi Reggaetón, Lofi Dance Hall and Synthwave. We created PRTL so everyone would have a genre they love to listen to.”
Some of hip-hop’s hottest up and coming artists, like OT The Real (currently touring with Benny The Butcher and Jadakiss) have even recorded songs to their beats. “We welcome the artists to make songs with our tracks, and release those songs through our distribution partners at The Orchard.”
You can check out PRTL on Spotify and other popular platforms.
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