The ‘racist’ AI rapper from Label Drops who made music with Fortnite Pro

One week ago, headlines were buzzing that Capitol Music Group had signed a digital rapper named FN Meka whose lyrics were created by artificial intelligence. Now, after much reaction and criticism from all over the internet, Capitol Music Group is rescinding that decision and instead dismissing the rapper with a profuse apology for offending people in its decision to create something Many have criticized it as an example of a “digital black face”.“

The initial signing was announced with the release of a song called “Florida Water”, which featured hip-hop artist Gunna alongside the stranger, 17-year-old fortnite Pro Clicks. Clix was signed with RG Esports and earned $162,000 in fortnite world Cup. When the single came out, there was a lot of confusion about Clix’s actual involvement in the project. After all, if you’re listening to the song, it doesn’t seem to actually feature the Clix’s voice. All the promotional materials for the songs, however, not only mentioned Clix – his name appeared before the name of Gunna and FN Meka themselves, the performers.

Clix manager says Kotaku That Clix “chosen” the track, which means he acquired the rights and released the copyright after Gunna had already sung on the song. What’s curious, however, is that Clix’s director claims Clix never wanted FN Meka to be involved in the first place.

“Capitol Records said that if he wanted to release Gunna’s song, he should let them put their artist Fn Meka on it,” he said in an email. “It was never what he wanted and he expressed that opinion but was told by the poster that this was the only way forward.”

Capitol Records did not respond to a request for comment. After prominently displaying the song across his social media through Pins, Clix appears to have removed it from immediate exposure.

All this comes on the heels of Capitol Records distancing itself from FN Meka, The The New York Times Reports. In a statement submitted to Asr, the company said:

We offer our deepest apologies to the black community for our indifference to signing on to this project without asking enough questions about fairness and the creative process behind it. We thank those who have reached out to us with constructive comments in the past couple of days – your contribution was invaluable as we reached the decision to end our association with the project.

The backlash has to do with concerns about racism, and as with The New York Times He puts it, “Digital Black Interface”. The rapper, who has 10.3 million followers on TikTok and was explicitly marketed as a work “at the intersection of music, technology and gaming culture” by the creators, appears to have been black-coded even though it’s not actually real. But there is a bigger question about how much artistic control black artists actually have over FN Meka’s overall project. The The New York Times The article states that while FN Meka is indeed voiced by a black man, things like “lyrical content, chords, melody, rhythm, and voices” are partly derived from AI. At the same time, only one white man is allegedly involved in the act of FN Meka.

Some of the criticism has been hand-blind by the music professionals cited in the article when they point out that contemporary musicians are often primarily trade-driven puppets who do and say as they are told. So, the reasoning seems to imply that perhaps it should be enough to have a black performer involved, even if the real driver behind the rapper isn’t AI. But the fact that FN Meka’s production was gamer-oriented, and explicitly used gaming aesthetics, certainly complicates matters – especially when it comes to Fortnite.

Battle Royale has come under fire in the past because it didn’t Repetition appropriately or offset by the black artists who created the dances They were incorporated into the game as purchasable emotes and helped the shooter spread in its popularity. fortnite I’ve since made efforts to rectify this.But it is ultimately just another phenomenon in a long line of popular culture phenomena that would not exist without the invisible contributions of black creators.

Furthermore, FN Meka’s attempt to bridge the gap and make digital rap great depends in large part on the games’ desire to accommodate black culture. When FN Meka brags about his fortunes, he doesn’t just brag about cars and planes that look like they might come out of a video game. All vehicles have a deck With custom gaming chairsnot flexible The leather you might expect from this flaunt. Sound Effects FN Meka appears in his videos Exit games like hard lime metal. FN Meka will take the time for that Cut to Xbox Series X which turned out to be cake. FN Meka, whose green luster reminds us of Razor products, falls on the scene Promote his new song Ride A fortnite Battle Bus. FN Meka fight his enemies b Hello imitation energy sword.

FN Meka has an AI that instructs him to say the n-word, along with videos of him being beaten by a police officer in prison. These are not unrelated things. They were calculated and worked. FN Meka’s videos have garnered millions of views.

Anthony Martini, founder of Factory New, the company behind FN Meka, told The New York Times.