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A few weeks back, a Drake song that was generated by artificial intelligence went viral on social media before it was taken down. At the time, there were countless people online praising the AI achievement for producing a great song.
On the latest episode of the Full Send Podcast, rapper Ice Cube tells Kyle Forgeard of the Nelk Boys is singing a different tune, one that isn’t produced by autotune or artificial intelligence.
Ice Cube, real name O’Shea Jackson, spoke with Nelk‘s Full Send hosts about how he believes AI is ‘demonic.’ He also wants to see rappers stop using autotune (and AI) and return to an era when rappers were easily identifiable by their natural voices.
Speaking with Kyle from Nelk, Ice Cube said:
“I like the beats. The artists are getting lost in autotunes, and now that you have an AI computer, I think people don’t want a computerized rapper no more. They want to hear your voice. I don’t know any rappers by they voice no more. I used to know all the rappers just – hear they voice, know who that is.
I think they need to figure out how to put that autotune down, and we need to hear what people sound like and if they’re as good because I think AI is demonic. I think AI is gonna get a backlash from real people — real, organic people — and so I think artists need to go back to using their real voice and making sure people know this is authentic and not made from a computer.”
Ice Cube went on to add that he thinks “it’s all starting to sound artificial because of AI.” Megan Armstrong of Uproxx writes that Ice Cube then went on to vow that anyone who might dare to use AI to make an Ice Cube song is going to immediately get sued.
While I completely understand Ice Cube’s point, I was personally hoping that we’d get some new Sublime songs this Summer thanks to AI and not the modern iteration of Sublime that’s always sounded different.
Earlier in the interview with Nelk, Ice Cube discussed the ‘deep state taking over’ our lives.
After talking about Sebastian from The Little Mermaid, Ice Cube adds that he heard in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, “the Seven Dwarves are really your mood swings when you’re coming off cocaine.”
Here is the clip:
Ice Cube expanded on that thought, saying “you have Snow White and Grumpy and Angry and Sleepy and all these things…” Adding “adults make cartoons so you gotta be careful.”
I have to say that’s a new one to me. I’ve never heard that Snow White and the Seven Dwarves were meant to represent a cocaine hangover. However, if you Google it, the Seven Dwarves are supposed to represent “Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Light, Shadow, and Magic.”