The use of artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly popular within hip hop and music overall. The most recent examples of this are now including voice replication in order to adapt popular artists to any song by another artist, many of which are nearly indistinguishable from an actual recording. These songs are attracting more attention each day, with some songs accumulating millions of listeners.
With these new opportunities of creativity arising, the question is then introduced: Who owns the rights to an artists voice? Is it the artist themselves? Is it the label in which a song was created under? Recently, you had hip hop producer Timbaland do a AI collab of where Biggie’s voice was used in a creation of a song and Last month, Canadian artist Grimes announced that she would like to split 50% royalties with anyone who produces a “successful AI generated song”, and she equated this deal to one that she would already offer to collaborating artists as well.
Either way, artificial voice adaptations have made a very noticeable presence, and they are likely here to stay. It won’t be long before these changes prove to either be harmful to hip hop culture, or ultimately an improvement to music industry standards.