VICE: Inside the Discord Where Thousands of Rogue Producers Are Making AI Music

"They released an entire album using an AI-generated copy of Travis Scott's voice, and labels are trying to kill it." - VICE

A group of music producers and songwriters released an entire album using AI-generated versions of rapper Travis Scott's voice and other artists, called UTOP-AI. The album was taken down three hours after being released on YouTube due to a copyright claim from Warner Music Group. It was then uploaded to Soundcloud, but was quickly taken offline there.

UTOP-AI, the album created by the Discord community, features original songs using AI-generated vocals from famous artists including Travis Scott, Drake, Baby Keem, and Playboi Carti. Qo, Snoop Dogg, VVD, Nicba, and twenty other people involved in the AI Hub community worked on it. 

This album puts into practice what drew Qo and Dogg to AI music in the first place—the ability to create material for artists they wish to hear more of. “If you're not aware, Utopia is an upcoming album that Travis Scott has been teasing for quite some time, but has never been released. A couple of members decided ‘You know what? We should just make Utopia ourselves at this point. We have the technology now.’ It's entirely written and produced by community members, and is being released sometime soon,” AI Hub's Snoop Dogg said. 

“We have a lot of very talented vocalists and producers that have worked on it,” Qo said before the album's release. “The only issue now is that our first single to it was just striked, as it was blowing up on tiktok, so we are unsure of where we will be putting it for streaming. Most likely it will be exclusively YouTube and Soundcloud.”

After the album was released on YouTube on 04/22/23, it was taken down about three hours later after being flagged for copyright by Warner Music Group. It was also taken down due to copyright infringement on Soundcloud but has since been reuploaded on YouTube by multiple fan accounts. “It got ~150k plays on SoundCloud and ~17k total on YouTube with 500 people watching the premiere,” Qo said.

“I love how AI music lets us transform existing songs and create new songs. It's great to have been a fan of many artists, and now being actually able to make new material if they don't drop often,” an admin of AI Hub and manager of the Discord’s corresponding YouTube channel Plugging AI, who goes by Qo, told Motherboard. “Traditional music will always be superior but AI music to me is just a cool way for fans to appreciate and conceptualize new ideas, the possibilities are almost limitless.” 

As AI music becomes more accessible and popular, it has become the center of a cultural debate. AI creators defend the technology as a way to make music more accessible, while many music industry professionals and other critics accuse creators of copyright infringement and cultural appropriation. 

To read more: https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3wdj7/inside-the-discord-where-thousands-of-rogue-producers-are-making-ai-music