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Writer's pictureandrew masferrer

AI Features are Taking Over the Underground

Ever since the rise of AI in the underground, artists have become more creative with their promo. Most memorable was the Ice Spice AI co sign from Jady's birthday that was seen about almost everywhere in the underground community. Some have even began making memes, using cartoon AI co signs and using voices like Yami Yugi from Yu-Gi-Oh to promote their music. Now there's a new celebrity being used by AI to get hype from audiences, Lil Uzi Vert.



Now from what I've seen, Herb4k was the first to take the idea to hype up his music with a Lil Uzi Vert feature done by AI. He specifically remixed his famed track "40 min" (which is already a remix of Uzi's track 20 min) and used AI to make it seem like he had gotten a genuine feature. He would play around with the snippet, sharing it on his stories without letting his audience know it was computer generated. He used this idea to get people to share his story and let the hype build up by itself. It was a collaboration that not a lot of people doubted to be true making it a great marketing scheme to try and attract as many eyes as he could. Of course he would later disclose that it was indeed not the real Uzi. He stated multiple times on IG live and his story letting supporters know it was just a fun idea he was playing around with. The promotion worked nonetheless. He had garnered plenty of attention amidst the AI controversy and used it to his advantage. More recently we've seen another upcoming artist, Deric, pull of a very similar tactic.



Deric chose one of his most popular songs, "Go Anthem", and used AI to create a feature from Uzi. Deric pushed the idea to further lengths by putting more effort in his promotion. He would go as far as hype up the snippet on stories, get cover art by Parrott, and actually release the song on YouTube. The description on the YouTube release revealed that it was indeed fake and you can even see people in the comments discussing how they fell for it. This was surprising for many because of the whole controversy over making fake features using AI.


This begins to beg the question, are AI features the new wave or should it not be pursued? On one hand it can be seen as a fun idea to play with and on the other it can be seen as faking it to make it. Regardless of opinions, one thing is for sure and that's the huge impact AI is having on the underground.


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