Music fans worldwide may have more human-to-robot interactions.
Capitol Music Group is the latest label to add a robot to their roster – FN Meka. The “robot rapper” has 10 million+ Tik Tok followers and nearly 200k on Instagram. FN Meka rocks green hair, gold chains, and a Gucci-printed Tesla truck. He regularly showcases original music on his social pages. On August 12th, he released “Florida Water”, executive produced by Turbo (Travis Scott, Lil Baby) which features Gunna and professional Fortnite player, Clix.
While FN Meka, is voiced by a human, everything else about him, lyrics to the chords, is generated by AI.
According to Virtual Humans, FN Meka made his first public appearance on April 22nd, 2019 and has since became an internet sensation. He has amassed over a billion views on Tik Tok alone, making him the “most popular synthetic being on the platform”. Naturally, big brands have partnered with Meka to capitalize on his fanbase. If you glance over his social presence, you’ll see short-form videos featuring Starbucks, Minecraft, and Xbox.
In March of last year, the rapper dropped non-fungible token (NFT) artwork, the SUPERTOILET. The NFT Crypto Guide details more on the peculiar art piece. “The NFT is a Lamborghini-styled porta-potty, designed by the artist called RTFKT, which was sold on the SuperRare NFT marketplace for $6500 to the acclaimed DJ Don Diablo.”
In an interview with MBW, Anthony Martini, the co-founder of the virtual record label, Factory New, explained more about FN Meka’s inception and the state of the music business. He questioned the business model of artists today by asking “Think about the biggest stars in the world. How many of them are just vessels for commercial endeavors?”.
He adds “If fans only ever see their favorite artists on screens anyway, then what difference does it make if those artists are real people or avatars?”
“EVEN WITH ALL THE MONEY LABELS DEVOTE TO FINDING TALENT, THE SUCCESS RATE IS A PITIFUL 1%. NOW WE CAN LITERALLY CUSTOM-CREATE ARTISTS USING ELEMENTS PROVEN TO WORK, GREATLY INCREASING THE ODDS OF SUCCESS.” -Anthony Martini
AI Powered influencers are computer generated people whose characteristics and personas mimics those of an actual human. These influencers are becoming increasingly common within pop culture. FN Meka is the latest to join the new breed of influencers. Lil Miquela, Shudu, and Ha Jiang are other AI robots in the modeling and music scene.