NEW YORK, Aug 25 — In under three years, he has managed to make a name for himself in the music business. On August 12, FN Meka became the first virtual artist to sign a contract with Capitol Records. But, a few weeks later the prominent record company has ended the partnership in the wake of accusations that the “robot rapper” was perpetuating racist stereotypes.

The news has come as a shock to the industry. Capitol Records has announced that it is parting ways with FN Meka, just days after several media outlets revealed that the virtual artist with 10 million followers on TikTok was joining the ranks of the Californian label. The reason? Some of his songs and clips perpetuate racist clichés about black people.

It all started with an open letter that Industry Blackout, a nonprofit activist organization created in 2020 to promote equity in the music industry, posted on social media to Capitol Records. “While we applaud innovation in tech that connects listeners to music and enhances the experience, we find fault in the lack of awareness in how offensive this caricature is,” it reads.

Industry Blackout also writes that FN Meka is based on “an amalgamation of gross stereotypes” and that he is a “direct insult to the black community and our culture.” To support its claims, the organisation cites the lyrics of some of the virtual rapper’s songs in which he uses the controversial “n-word.”

Also brought up is an old post by the robot-artist, in which he is seen being brutalized by a police officer in a prison cell. “This digital effigy is a careless abomination and disrespectful to real people who face real consequences in real life,” Industry Blackout’s open letter states.

Built for success

Faced with the extent of the controversy, Capitol Records has publicly apologised for signing a contract with the avatar.

“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,” the record company said in a statement relayed in the English-language press.

Half rapper, half influencer, FN Meka belongs to the category of “soundcloud rappers” like Lil Pump, Lil Uzi Vert and 6ix9ine. But, unlike them, he neither wrote nor composed the songs that made him famous among the general public. For that, he has artificial intelligence to thank. This technological feat was made possible by Factory New, a record company dedicated exclusively to virtual talent.

“We’ve developed a proprietary AI technology that analyses 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,” one of its confounders, Anthony Martini, explained to Music Business Worldwide in April 2021.

While FN Meka is a hodgepodge of algorithms, a human “double” is still needed to sing the songs composed by the artificial intelligence. But the cyberpunk avatar has quickly found his audience. He has more than 574,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and over a billion views on TikTok. But it is likely that his numbers will drop in response to the controversy. — ETX Studio