Artists use Meta’s music AI language model to generate hip-hop beats like OpenAI’s ChatGPT generates text, captured in a new documentary.
OAKLAND, Calif., Dec. 7, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — East Oakland hip-hop artist Nimrod Cain (“Nimsins”) has achieved a milestone of recording the first studio album produced by generative AI, using experimental MusicGen technology developed by Meta (formerly known as Facebook). The album recording process, consisting of 8 songs recorded over a 24-hour period, has been catalogued in a two-part documentary “Sensory Overload: The AI Music Producer,” available now via Slouchy Media.
MusicGen is a “transformer” language model similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Users write a text “prompt” describing their desired music, and MusicGen produces a 30-second snippet of a novel musical composition. The MusicGen language model was trained using over 20,000 hours of music owned and licensed by Meta.
Nimsins was introduced to MusicGen by Vinay Pai, an acclaimed Bay Area music producer moonlighting as an engineer at a San Francisco-based AI startup. The pair booked a $12 per hour PIRATE.COM studio in Queens, New York with the goal of recording a full-length EP in twenty-four hours. The “Sensory Overload” documentary depicts their experiments with different “prompts” to discover the capabilities of the AI model. Nimsins said: “We were making a statement–let’s create a classic record in a low-budget studio with a free AI.”
The artists asked the AI to create beats influenced by classic hip-hop artists such as Wu-Tang Clan, DMX, and Missy Elliott, as well as contemporary rap sub-genres like “trap” and “drill.” They learned that Meta’s AI model is very adept at generating “lofi” and “drill” beats, as well as compelling snippets of “jazz” and “Spanish classical” music ripe for sampling. With guest appearances from Big Baby Gandhi (Queens, NY) and JovenFrodo444 (Cataño, PR) the duo recorded four songs exploring themes of war, technology, religion, and capitalism.
At dawn, Nimsins and Vinay flew back to California to complete the second half of the project in a makeshift studio in the Fruitvale neighborhood of East Oakland. There, they were joined by fellow Oakland-natives Demahjiae and Keese-Sama, KOTD battle rapper Nán Fiero, and others, experimenting further with “boom bap,” “reggae” and “drill”-inspired sounds. Artists who attended the session were stunned by the AI’s quality and speed of production.
In a scene at the Oakland studio, Vinay commented: “I have a feeling this will destroy the music industry. This is version one, version alpha. It’s just a matter of time before the whole music business gets flipped upside-down.”
The documentary “The AI Music Producer” is a capsule of a historic moment in music, as generative AI raises high-stakes questions about the ethics and economics of art, and the uncertain future of legacy media industries. The film is now available in two parts on YouTube: Part One (New York) and Part Two (Oakland).
All revenues from the “Sensory Overload” album will be donated to Beats Rhymes & Life, an Oakland-based non-profit organization that uses hip-hop and music therapy to reduce the stigma surrounding therapeutic services for at-risk youth. The album and merch are available at http://sensoryoverload.ai.
Meta AI is an artificial intelligence laboratory owned by Meta Platforms, Inc. for research and development of AI, augmented and artificial reality technologies.
Beats Rhymes & Life is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that provides therapeutic and educational services for marginalized youth.
Slouchy Media is a multimedia hub for groundbreaking artists at cultural frontiers.
SOURCE Slouchy Media
