A Virtual Rapper Was Signed To Capitol Records And Then Dropped Over Racial Stereotypes
Today in “WTF Girl? Humanity Has Really Made A Wrong Turn” news: a Black A.I. rapper, FN Meka, created by non-Black people, who raps the N-word, was signed to and then immediately dropped from Capitol Records after the internet said: “We literally do not have time for this.” Meet: FN Meka, the racially stereotyped augmented reality entity that is probably going to one day join a computer hive mind and kill us all.
FN Meka has 10 million followers on TikTok and 223,000 followers on Instagram. This robot rapper was created by Factory New, which Entertainment Weekly says was described by its co-founder, Anthony Martini as a “media company focused solely on virtual and digital talent.” FN was designed by Anthony’s business partner, Brandon Le, “using thousands of data points compiled from video games and social media.” A Frankenstein monster created from stitching together our social media and video game landscape–I literally cannot think of anything worse. Anthony describes the creation of this virtual hell demon like this:
“Developed a proprietary AI technology that analyzes certain popular songs of a specified genre and generates recommendations for the various elements of song construction: lyrical content, chords, melody, tempo, sounds, etc. We then combine these elements to create the song.”
Grab the holy water because here’s FN Meka in action:
@fnmeka OooooO I look good today 😳. #thirsttrap #buff #fit
So Capitol Records decided to sign FN Meka, making the virtual rapper the “first AR artist” on a major label. That move was a bad one, according to Industry Blackout, a group of Black creatives who want to bring racial change to the entertainment industry. They issued a statement, calling FN Meka “an amalgamation of gross stereotypes, appropriative mannerisms that derive from Black artists, complete with slurs infused in lyrics.”
Have you lost your FN minds? @capitolrecords @capitolmusic pic.twitter.com/TxbqDhJmv0
— Industry Blackout #IndustryBlackout (@industryblkout) August 23, 2022
Because of the backlash, Capitol dropped FN Meka and issued this statement:
“CMG has severed ties with the FN Meka project, effective immediately,” Capitol Music Group said in a statement to EW. “We offer our deepest apologies to the Black community for our insensitivity in signing this project without asking enough questions about equity and the creative process behind it. We thank those who have reached out to us with constructive feedback in the past couple of days — your input was invaluable as we came to the decision to end our association with the project.”
Oh no, FN Meka has been canceled! Poor robot! Well, they should toss that mess into the trash and call it a day. But I’m sure they’ll just change the color of FN Meka’s skin and relaunch him as a white rapper who never says the N-word, hoping the internet doesn’t notice. They’re going to try to un-Rachel Dolezal FN Meka!
Pic: Instagram