Beyoncé – Instagram
*Artificial Intelligence may have music lovers (and the rest of the world) caught up between the genuine and the computer-generated, but real vocalists are finding an ally with Beyoncé.
According to TechCrunch, the former Destiny’s Child vocalist’s new album “Cowboy Carter” looks to be the weapon of choice as the site notes how the release is making ” an unexpected statement against the growing presence of AI in music.”
Speaking on her latest album, Beyoncé touted the experience of putting “Cowboy Carter” together the old-fashioned way with real instruments.
“The joy of creating music is that there are no rules,” the “Texas Hold ‘Em” singer said. “The more I see the world evolving the more I felt a deeper connection to purity. With artificial intelligence and digital filters and programming, I wanted to go back to real instruments.”
Noting the rarity of Beyonce’s interviews, TechCrunch mentioned that the “Dreamgirls” entertainer’s comments and her take on AI “isn’t just a throwaway comment made in conversation with a reporter. It’s deliberate.”
Beyoncé
Beyonce’s view of AI marks the latest development surrounding the controversial method and its hold on the music industry. Since its arrival, AI has been a hot topic, with creating new songs in minutes through emulating the vocals of an artist to the point of it being a challenge to distinguish whether the emulated artist is actually performing on the tune.
With AI-generated material, the concern is very present as companies, like Open AI and Stability AI, use datasets that include copyrighted artworks without consent.
Diving into AI issue, “Cowboy Carter” doesn’t specifically go there, but it does include material that touches on the theft and appropriation of artworks without consent.
With Beyonce, she does double duty in the teacher role by educating her fans on the foundation of country music laid by Black musicians.
Even the title, “Cowboy Carter,” is a nod to the appropriation of Black music for white people’s gain,” TechCrunch pointed out while alluding to the recent stir from an Oklahoma-based country radio station’s refusal to play “Texas Hold ‘Em” and the resulting backlash.
Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ album cover
Though “Carter” could reference Beyoncé’s married name, it’s also a nod to the Carters, the “first family” of country music — and those Carters took the work of Black musicians to develop the style we now know as country, which continues to exclude Black artists (just recently, an Oklahoma country radio station recently refused a listener’s request to play Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em,” since Beyoncé didn’t fit their definition of a country artist). Beyoncé’s seemingly random stance against AI unearths a similar truth: Once again, artists’ work is being stolen without their consent and contorted into something else, leaving them without payment or credit for their cultural contributions.
For more about Beyoncé and her stance on AI, click here.
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