The Kendrick Lamar/Drake beef dominated the
culture over the weekend, with the two rappers trading fresh new diss
tracks that somehow dragged everyone from Future to Aretha Franklin(!)
into the fray. The back and forth has been innovative in other ways. A
few weeks ago, Drake employed artificial intelligence software to
generate verses that sounded like Snoop Dogg and the late Tupac Shakur.
While some purists thought the move crossed a creative line, the writer
Abe Beame, in this interesting essay,
compares the use of A.I. in music to the rise of AutoTune in the
aughts—a technological leap destined to be clumsily employed at first
and then become a fascinating part of art-making later. “AI opens
broader ethical questions, to be clear,” he writes, “but the historical
precedent, the narrative arc, is ancient and universal.”
—Raymond Ang, Associate Director, Editorial Operations |
Rap
music—an art form that turned fifty this year despite being pronounced
dead many times over—supposedly died again on April 19, amid the ongoing contest of champions between Compton and Toronto’s respective favorite sons.
The culprit was Drake (who, depending on who you ask, has committed
this crime several times before). The murder weapon was “Taylor Made
Freestyle,” a goofy and clunky but conceptually brilliant Kendrick Lamar
diss in which Drake used AI as a literary device, borrowing the voices
of both 2Pac and Snoop Dogg to “coach” Kendrick for nearly four minutes.
A wave of alarmist, reactionary soothsaying followed immediately. The
arguments: That the diss was dirty pool. That Drake had released a
malevolent genie from its lamp, helping normalize AI robbing dead (or
living) artists of all control over their art, their brand, their very
souls. That an AI diss will eventually get someone killed. That AI
threatens the fabric of reality. That the “Taylor Made Freestyle” will
inevitably become sentient and produce an army of mimetic polyalloy
skeleton soldiers to travel back in time and wipe out humanity's last
hope. |
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