AI is officially taking over the world, with some deeming it “the future.” Specifically in the music industry, where recording artists (who are ahead of the curve) can use it to attend to their creative needs at a click of a button. In fact, Lil Yachty used Artificial Intelligence to generate the album cover for his forthcoming album.
Insert Darnell Williams, the Detroit rapper and music video director who just created the first AI music video in hip-hop. The newly released visual was made entirely using the new Encore Studio app. Co-founded by Kid Cudi, Encore first launched as a virtual performance platform, giving artists the ability to stream from their phones to their fans, who “clap” to support artists from the comfort of their homes.
Encore is now utilizing AI to allow artists to create unique, one-of-one video content for free — essentially offering a whole video production studio from their smartphone. Artists are able to generate unique images using their voice or any text description they can imagine and immediately place them into their room.
Darnell’s new visual is titled 23’ Lark Freestyle and is inspired “finally having the power to match some of the crazy ideas I have in my head to a visual canvas using A.I,” said Darnell.
AllHipHop spoke with Darnell Wiliams at the Encore office in Culver City, who had just wrapped the first AI performance on the app.
“It’s really exciting,” Darnell states. “It’s dope. I’m just blessed to be one of the first people to do it. I’m honored to be able to pioneer moving the culture forward and ushering rap and tech into one thing. People seeing us as more than rap artists that sing and dance, so I’m proud to be one of the pioneers of that. I hope that other people see it and take heed to it. Remix it, do the s### their way.”
Beyond the AI music video he created, Williams was the first to perform virtually live on Encore using AI to build his set design and background.
“That s### felt great,” he explains. “It felt great to make. The thing is, it’s always dope to see the product in motion. Usually, there’s so much work behind it that I’m doing by myself. But with the AI s###, AI does a lot of the work for me. It’s a different feeling because as dope as it is, it almost feels too easy. [laughs]”
Williams puts it into comparison: making a freestyle video for someone would take over two days of editing. But using AI? No more than 30 minutes.
Additionally, Williams launched his own Artificial Intelligence app called Rapswift, a song-generating AI app that can produce a full rap at the click of a button.
“It generates raps from any style, any artist, at the click of a button,” Williams explains. “You can take it and write a full song, but it’s really to show artists how to write and give you ideas. Eliminate writer’s block, it’s like having your own personal ghostwriter. At the same time, it’s inspired by the prompts that you put into it. It’s you, just in AI form. Definitely check that s### out. Rapswift: the first AI song-generating app made by a rapper, so you know it’s good.”
To summarize, AI can make anything in seconds as long as you have creative brainpower.