(FiveNation.com)- In a well-I-nevery column at the UK Guardian, writer Akin Olla claims that the artificial intelligence-created rapper called FN Meka is tantamount to a digital “minstrel show.”
FN Meka, which has gained fame on TikTok for posting short rap music videos, was created using artificial intelligence. Capital Records even signed this AI rapper to a record deal. But the deal was dropped after activists accused the creator of FN Meka of using racist stereotypes. The activists claimed the AI rapper was a modern version of “blackface.”
See, the problem with this artificial intelligence rapper is that the creator is white. The white creator may as well have slapped shoe polish on his face and burst into the chorus of “Mamie” as far as Akin Olla is concerned.
FN Meka’s AI-generated lyrics frequently use the N-word and to Akin Olla, this is proof that the white creator was “exploiting” the black experience.
It deeply offends Olla that white people “can now create their own Black artists from scratch, built with the racist biases inevitable when artificial intelligence is created under a white supremacist society.”
Ah, okay. So the AI rapper isn’t the only thing that’s racist. Artificial intelligence itself is also racist.
So, too, is capitalism.
Olla blasts Capital Records for having the audacity to initially sign FN Meka, but adds that it isn’t a surprise since Capital “exists under capitalism.” And in its quest for profit, Olla writes, Capital Records is willing to lick “from the bottom of the cultural barrel.”
It also infuriates Olla that FN Meka has over 10 million followers on TikTok who can’t be bullied into unfollowing the AI rapper the way Capital Records was bullied.
No doubt Olla believes all ten million of FN Meka’s followers are also racists.
What bothers Olla the most is that after this “theft from Black culture,” no black person is going to profit off of FN Meka’s success.
Olla concludes that FN Meka “feels” like it is “straight from the bogeyman nightmares of white conservatives.”
