WEBVTT

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- Like even in the
digital sphere, like even

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even AI rappers are harassed by police,

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- AI rolls out.

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It becomes this like readily accessible

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commercial technology.

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And of all the genres, the first one

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where we have AI songs going
viral is hip hop, right?

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Like why is it hip hop where
AI gets automatically applied?

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Why is hip hop the pioneer here?

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- Who in my position didn't
imagine that once we got ai

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or once we got like augmented reality,

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or once we got, you know,
like digital avatars,

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that there wasn't going to be
a crisis of digital black face

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Who, who didn't imagine
that that was gonna happen?

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Because that's the whole
history of this country.

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If you have pop culture

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that's like deeply steeped
in white folks dressing up

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as black folks and then acting the way

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that they think black folks act

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for each other's entertainment

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and then telling black folks,
well, I see you performing it,

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but you ain't really doing
it in an authentic way.

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And so we'll continue
to have people dress up

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or we'll hire people

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who do it the way we
think it should be done.

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Well now you can just program that.

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And so like, if you can get
code that does the performance

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of blackness that lots of
people believe is authentic

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and is real and that they want,

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and then you don't even
have to have black people.

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And so I think that this
is precisely the same.

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And so of course it's going to be someone

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imitating Barack Obama's voice

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or somebody imitating Drake's voice

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or somebody imitating generally conceived

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hood black accent

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and then putting, you
know, an avatar together

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that has dark skinned and has locked hair.

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And then putting the digital
avatar in a situation,

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in a scenario where it
experiences police brutality

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because like, won't that
make it even more resonant

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with the communities that we are trying

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to portray this message to that like,

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even in the digital sphere, like even

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even AI rappers are harassed by police.

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And that's, and and I'm saying that

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that's the reality right now.

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That was the thing that happened

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with the FM Mecca character.

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- I, I'm not familiar with FM

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Mecca. Can you tell me what that is?

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- Yeah, FM Mecca was the
first, I wanna say first like

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augmented reality rapper that was signed

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to a major record label, had
all kinds of streams on TikTok

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and mad followers.

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And I think it was Capital Records

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that presented the
contract, signed the deal,

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and then come to find out
that there was a black guy

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who was involved, who was a rapper

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and they kind of like based
his appearance a little bit,

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his voice off of this guy

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after the backlash, then
capital backside of the deal.

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And you know, like, you
know, grand opening,

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grand closing it.

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- It's funny, like there's, there's an

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interesting parallel here, right?

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Like I bet the people who
make these AI tools would say

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that it's similar to sampling, right?

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We're taking something that exists

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and we're just using it in a new way.

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20 or 30 years ago, two
life crew was saying like,

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well we shouldn't have
to pay for this, right?

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We're just, we're just taking something

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and using it ass parody
or it's something else.

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Could you compare for us the,
the different considerations

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with sampling and ai?

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'cause there's some ways
that they're similar, right?

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- I think that like maybe the arguments

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that people make are similar,

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but I mean, again, I think

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that there are probably lots of artists.

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It really is about who gets exploited,

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like the vulnerable
people who get exploited

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and how those people, regardless

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of whatever the laws ever said,

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like those people were just overlooked.

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And, and most of the times,
like in, in that history

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of those laws, it wasn't like
those laws were being made

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to protect the most vulnerable people

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that were being exploited.

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They were used to protect the people

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who probably needed the least protection.

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And they were able to say,
okay, I'm gonna fight this.

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I'm gonna make sure that you
can't make anything out of

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what I'm doing, even if it
is a transformative use.

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But I don't know that AI is
looking at transformative use.

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Like, I'm going to turn the
thing you had, I'm going to use

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that as the color palette
or the sound palette

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and then I'm gonna take pieces of that

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and then I'm going to
make a different painting

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or I'm going to draw a different thing.

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I'm going to make something else.

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Like I'm gonna transform
it into a new thing.

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If it is ad I want you to say this.

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And I'm like, nah, I don't,
I don't say shit like that.

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And then somebody's like,
oh, well we've got enough

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of you talking so that we
might be able to make a bank

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and then we can reproduce
your voice saying the thing

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that you wouldn't say, but I'm right here

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saying I don't wanna say that.

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And if you make something
that makes me say that

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and that makes a whole
lot of money for you,

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because I said no, now

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I don't have no right to none of that.

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Like my, my voice is
just out there for you

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to use whenever you want it.

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But I think that this is a lot bigger

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and a lot messier than the thing

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that might make a clean analogy.

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And so it really kind of
contingent, you know, it depends on

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what people are using
this new technology for,

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how it maps onto that history.

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Yeah, I think that there have been

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and continue to be lots of
different uses for samples.

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And the easiest one,
especially to pathologize

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and to invalidate hip
hop artists as artists

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or as musicians has been

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to say they're not
doing anything original.

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That they're just like,
it's all derivative.

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It's all like all they're
doing is taking someone else's

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music and then replaying that music.

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But we all know that that was a lie.

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And we also know why that lie existed

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and it was to make sure

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that those folks couldn't claim the

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status of, you know, art.

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And even still as we understand
it, that's an argument

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that I hear all the time in
my job that people are saying,

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well, you know, like
rappers are not artists

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or hip hop artists are not
artists that they're all thieves

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or whatever and you
know, that's just racist.

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It's just racist scapegoating.

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It is rap washing, it's all garbage.

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And they know that that's the
argument that they're making,

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but they continue to make it

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because there's a, there's
a public that wants to hear

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that argument and wants to entertain it

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because of the arguments
that have been made

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that have like sort of fixed
along these racial lines.