Capitol Records Drops Virtual Rapper FN Meka

Virtual rapper, FN Meka has been dropped by Capitol Records. In a statement to Rolling Stone,  a Capitol Music Group representative confirmed the dropping. 

"MG has severed ties with the FN Meka project, effective immediately. We offer our deepest apologies to the Black community for our insensitivity in signing this project without asking enough questions about equity and the creative process behind it.  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 decision to drop FN Meka comes after news of his signing by Capitol Records triggered a significant backlash from the hip-hop community, with FN Meka's overly exaggerated African-American tropes angering many people. 

News of the FN Meka's signing had also drawn criticism from segments of the industry, with much of the criticism following the lines of this tweet from producer D.Shim who states " “He’s not even a human being and got 10 million followers on Tik Tok. What is the world coming to? Will AI robots replace human creation? I need answers. Like right now.”  

So you’re telling me Captiol records just gave an AI robot named FN Meka a rap deal before any of my clients???? He’s not even a human being and got 10 million followers on tik tok. What is the world coming to? Will AI robots replace human creation? I need answers. Like right now

— D.Shim (@dshimbeatz) August 18, 2022

Angry staffers within the Capitol Music Group reportedly blame the FN Meka signing and fall out on a lack of diversity at the label, especially in decision-making managerial and executive positions. The decision to drop FN Meka came as a surprise to the creators' Factory New, who are said to be 'blindsided' by both the furore and the resultant choice to drop FN Meka.

FN Meka's first and now final release for the label, a single titled Florida Water, features incarcerated rapper Gunna and streamer Clix, with production handled by Turbo (Young Thug, Travis Scott). The song also features executive production by DJ Holiday (Gucci Mane, Nicki Minaj).

The vocals on the track are reportedly performed by an actual rapper, however, the lyrics were written using artificial intelligence. Created by Factory New, who call themselves a 'virtual record label', FN Meka is very much a 'robot rapper', as Factory New co-founder Anthony Martini explained to MBW. 

"We’ve developed a proprietary AI technology that analyzes 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. As of now, a human voice performs the vocals, but we are working towards the ability to have a computer come up with and perform its own words – and even collaborate with other computers as “co-writers”.

The future for FN Meka is unclear, however with over 10 million followers and one billion views on TikTok, it seems unlikely that the industry has heard the last from the AI rapper.

The signing of FN Meka had continued a recent trend in the major label space. Warner Records signed a global partnership with SM Entertainment and their K-Pop 'Metaverse Girl Group' aespa. aespa features four human and four virtual members. Warner Records also signed a 'virtual idol' in China called Ha Jiang to their pan-Asian dance label.  It is unclear if those signings might face similar issues.