Hip-hop revolutionized pop culture almost exactly 50 years ago, and as it celebrated a half-century it suddenly looks old enough to get disrupted itself. It’s an art form famously based on preexisting material, as the earliest rappers would rhyme over pastiches of vinyl records with certain breaks repeated on a loop. The emergence of generative A.I. is making songs based off unauthorized reproductions of famous artists’ voices and musical styles. Sound familiar? To Ice Cube, the Compton, Calif.-born rapper who is one of the forefathers of modern hip-hop, this is downright “demonic.” He doesn’t want to hear that the two scenarios are comparable.
The rise of creative artificial intelligence is starting to threaten musicians and artists, who are finding themselves in the crossfire of machines capable of generating text, sound, and images. Drake and The Weeknd are just some of the artists who have had to listen to uncanny replicants of their voice generated by A.I., and even if computers haven’t produced a viral fake of his voice yet, Ice Cube already has a verdict on the age of A.I. in rap.
