By Content Director Cameron Castaldi
As generative AI continues to advance, it is becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate human creativity from computer algorithms. In the past, I had chosen not to participate in discussions about artificial intelligence because I find them incredibly frustrating and unproductive, as they clearly will never die. However, as it begins to seep into the depths of the music industry, conversations about generative AI have become inevitable and now directly impact the music that I choose to listen to.
On June 20th, Hip Hop producer The Alchemist and Neo-Soul artist Erykah Badu released their newest single titled “Next to You,” a first glimpse into their upcoming collaborations. Featuring monotonous and overly distorted vocals on an even more monotonous beat, the song itself is an incredibly dull introduction to their upcoming album, a rare critique for two musicians whose works have completely revolutionized the industry. However, a majority of the song’s overwhelmingly negative reviews come not from the music itself, but from its corresponding artwork.
Immediately after its release, fans began to notice something “off” about the album cover. The music note is backwards, the buttons on the boombox are completely warped, and each hand seems to have a different number of fingers. The quality of the music video is even worse, with zero stylistic consistency between scenes and warped perspectives that make some scenes completely incomprehensible.
As it was quickly revealed, both the song’s cover and music video were created using generative AI, a type of artificial intelligence that pieces together old information it has been fed to create something new. Rather than hire a real artist to create their visuals (which two world-famous musicians could most definitely afford), they instead chose to use software that steals from the creativity of real artists in order to produce something of much poorer quality.
Erykah Badu has been one of my favorite musicians for several years now, and what moved me to first seek out her music was her collection of beautiful album covers, namely Mama’s Gun and New Amerykah, Pt. 2: Return of the Ankh. The Alchemist also has some iconic covers, Alfredo—his collaborative album with rapper Freddie Gibbs—being my personal favorite. Each cover has a unique style that beautifully introduces and interprets their music. So, what does it say about a musician’s work if their promotional materials are lazy and unintelligible?
While millions of people post on social media each day, the content that we choose to consume continues to degrade in quality and length, shortening our attention spans and diminishing our appreciation for real, human creativity. Now, this phenomenon has reached the music industry, with two huge names releasing cheap, AI-generated graphics with zero remorse.
While the growing usage of generative AI may feel hopeless, we still have the power to control what media we consume and endorse. Sadly, that now means avoiding the newest works of two musicians whose careers I have followed for years.
Born from innovation and creativity, the careers of Erykah Badu and The Alchemist span nearly three decades. Their projects were praised not only for their musicality but also for their exciting visuals. These people should know better, and it is our job as consumers to continue to hold them accountable. No matter how much this technology may advance, the value of human creativity will never disappear, and we can only hope that this situation has been a wake-up call to other musicians planning on doing the same.