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Pedestrian.tv
Pedestrian.tv
Entertainment
Michael Di Iorio

An AI Rapper Is Under Fire For Using The N-Word Despite Being Made By Zero Black People

An AI rapper has become the fastest rapper to ever be dropped by a music label — a sentence I didn’t think I’d ever have to write until at least 2063. The rapper named FN Meka has faced online backlash for being a “Black artist” despite the fact zero Black people are behind his creation. So essentially: blackface. Capitol Records (which is under Universal Music Group) signed FN Meka on August 14 but announced that it would be dropping him
Chris Brandon Le Anthony Martini
@fnmeka

Do you believe in me? . I want to rule the one day. #virtualinfluencer #tobilou #robot2

♬ FnMeka Internet – FNMeka
Shudu Gram white man in his twenties Music Business Worldwide

The post An AI Rapper Is Under Fire For Using The N-Word Despite Being Made By Zero Black People appeared first on PEDESTRIAN.TV .

on August 24 after folks online rightfully slammed the entire premise of a Black digital persona without any Black creatives behind it at all. “CMG has severed ties with the FN Meka project, effective immediately,” a spokesperson for Capitol Records wrote in a statement. “We offer our deepest apologies to the Black community for our insensitivity in signing the project without asking enough questions about equity and the creative process behind it. “We thank those who have reached out to us with constructive feedback in the past couple of days — your input was invaluable as we came to the decision to end our association with the project.” FN Meka’s creators are and , who worked in collaboration with , the owner of the music label Factory New. Discourse kicked off after an FN Meka track from 2019 titled “Moonwalkin” resurfaced online, in which the N-word is used multiple times. Who was programming him to say such a thing? Who was voicing him? Since being dropped from Capitol Records — even though he should never have been picked up in the first place — FN Meka’s track “Florida Water” has been removed from socials (although it still appears on Spotify) and his Instagram has been made private. The entire concept of Black bodies being used by non-Black people for profit isn’t something new to the internet, either. The rise of AI technology has given way to many individuals creating Black personas without a single Black person involved in the creation. , a Black AI model, was revealed to be the creation of a . It’s quite literally blackface under the guise of innovation. “The old model of finding talent is inefficient and unreliable,” Web3 investor and white man Anthony Martini told . “It requires spending time scouring the internet, travelling to shows, flying to meetings, expending resources all in search of the magic combination of qualities that just might translate into a superstar act.” So instead of finding a human being to invest in, you decided to create a Black man to rap for you. It’s giving coloniser. It’s giving rich white man with not an ounce of respect for anyone who doesn’t look like him. To make matters worse, the FN Meka Instagram account posted a picture of the character being attacked by a police officer in 2019. The image was captioned “POLICE BRUTALITY”. There has never been a clearer sign that there are no Black people behind the character at all. Using violence and trauma to advertise your product is an absolutely despicable thing to do. It shows a complete neglect for Black lives all for the sake of profit. FN Meka’s entire existence is exploitative and offensive. Hopefully, we never have to witness AI rappers ever again. Someone needs to strip straight men of their money.
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