Less than three years of career, and already a signature in the same label as Abba, Katy Perry, and Paul McCartney. Mid-August 2022, half-rapper, half-influencer, FN Meka realizes the dream of a multitude of artists by joining the Capitol Records team (sub-label of the major Universal Music). To celebrate, the artist with 10 million TikTok subscribers even offered himself a single trap, Florida Waterwith two distinguished guests: Gunna, brilliant rap star from Atlanta, and Clix, Fortnite video game champion.
@fnmeka Shout out to my guy DJ Five Venoms for letting me crash his Rolling Loud set – where should I perform next?? HIT BlO TO PRESAVE
♬ Florida Water – FN Meka & Gunna & Clix
The million plays are exceeded on Spotify in a short week. However, behind a very real success hides a very virtual being. The first rapper created by the machine. Behind the fluorescent green of his dreads, the bling-bling of his robotic hand, and his product placements on his dozens of posts on TikTok, FN Meka is nothing but a tangle of algorithms. The Americans Anthony Martini and Brandon Le gave birth to him in 2019. The bionic influencer became one of the first recruits of Factory New, their record label dedicated to virtual talents.
To educate the musical artificial intelligence (AI) of FN Meka, thousands of data are compiled. Anthony Martini explained it in April 2021 to Music Business Worldwide (MBW): “We have developed an artificial intelligence that analyzes certain popular songs of a given genre and generates recommendations for the different elements of the construction of a song: lyrical content, chords, melody, tempo, sounds, etc.”
“Just a preview of what’s to come”. Mid-August, again with MBW, were the words of Ryan Ruden on this project, executive vice president of experiential marketing at Capitol Music Group. However, even though one of the robot-rapper’s fathers brags about the profitability and efficiency of these “made-to-measure artists”, he recognizes that a human understudy remains necessary to give voice to this coded music. Exactly as with superstar rapper Travis Scott’s IA double, created by the Space150 agency in 2020 and the source of an original song, human intervention and inspiration remain essential.