Generative AI is everywhere these days. From text to speech, from images to videos, from music to art, there is hardly any domain that has not been touched by the undeniable power of artificial intelligence. Everyone knows about this technology, or the people that are reading this blog post all know about it at least. It is likely that we all use it daily to help us with our daily tasks. Whether to plan out a trip, find a recipe, or kickstart our creative work, it is already becoming increasingly hard to imagine our daily routines without it.
But do you remember the first time you really saw what generative AI could do? This is a question that popped into my head when thinking about a topic to write about for this blog. For me, it was back in 2020, a time when I was aware of the prowess of AI, but in which I had not heard the term “Generative AI” as it is being used today.
So, in 2020, a fake Travis Scott song was “released” that was produced by an AI model. Over the course of the years, I have become rather acquainted with the musical library of the Houston rapper, so I could obviously hear that it was not him. However, if someone had told me that it was made by an upcoming rap artist, I would have probably believed it at first.
Especially the lyrics of the song by TravisBott (yes, this is what the creative minds of the project call him) stood out. In fact, they really seem to dwell in the realm of absurdity:
“She got the crew on top of my chain (It’s lit); Wasted in the street like a pain (Straight up); You see the diamonds in the light of chain; They say I f*cked the bad b*tch like I’m rain; I was the b*tch on the plane (Straight up).”
If you are a trap/rap connoisseur, these lyrics just seem a bit off to you. Most people, however, will likely not tell the difference fake and real lyrics. Because indeed, this song also mirrors the prevalent contemporary rap narrative of using swear words and talking about money and sexual desires. But if you pay attention, the sentences just do not really make sense.
So, considering that most people do not really know what “normal” rap lyrics look like, and considering that this is made by AI, I was rather astonished when I read this news and listened to the song. I was specifically amazed by how authentic and realistic the production of the song was, from the melody to the text. Apparently, Space150, the company behind the song, started out feeding real-life Travis Scott lyrics into a language model for two weeks until it began creating its own rhymes. The company mentioned that the lyrics were initially foo-obsessed, but that they smarter as time went on. Then, they used additional neural network programs to create melodies and percussion arrangements to accompany the generated lyrics. Back then, these “AI terms” were quite new to me but I did realize how clever it was.
It was the moment where I first saw an application of how far generative AI had come already, and how much more it could achieve. As I write this blog, I meander the internet to watch the video clip one more time and find the news articles that talked about this musical production. I now stumble upon multiple other AI-generated rap songs that have been created recently. So, if you all do not mind, I will give them a listen to see if lyrics make a bit more sense than the ones in the TravisBott production.
