At YouTube’s AI & Music Talk, a Rapper Explains How He Mastered the Art of AI: ‘I Feel Limitless’

“How did I know I was hooked?” asks Jidenna, the “Classic Man” artist who was once signed to Janelle Monae‘s Epic Records imprint, narrating a mind-bending video he created himself using AI tools. “I think for most of us, it usually starts with a basic prompt. You know, a random thought or a silly idea. Something so innocent about that first time. About a week later, you find yourself scrolling for hours just to get the right generation. A month in, you’re a whole art director now, at night school on YouTube to be an AI director….I am a damn myth maker, and I feel limitless.”

Jidenna, who has been working as an independent artist since the pandemic, presented his video during a fireside chat this week with YouTube’s global head of music Lyor Cohen in New York, chalking up his advanced AI skills to the fact that he’s no longer in the major label system.

“That’s why I’m sitting in the chair with you — because I’m independent, not because I was working with a cast of 20 people who were gonna do my videos for me. Nobody’s doing a video for me. Nobody’s making a beat for me. I do it all myself. I had to learn film. I had to learn what this new Gen AI world was….we’re at a point where those of us who may have been marginalized by whatever reason, are taking the tools and figuring out what we could do with it.”

Their conversation, attended by artists including Wyclef Jean, Mike D and Busta Rhymes, covered the opportunities and challenges ahead for artists in an AI world.  Here are some of the highlights:

Lyor Cohen: Do you have to be a PhD to do this stuff? What is the barrier of entry for artists, producers, creatives? What muscles do you have to use other than the standard creative muscles that you used before when you were making records?

Jidenna: The same muscles that everybody in this room is gonna have to use. Curiosity, agency, fast learning, the ability to reinvent yourself every year. Nobody’s safe, and you have to be able to transform yourself every single year. And as I’ve learned this year, every month or two months.

I watch the news all the time and they’re constantly talking about the workforce and how the workforce is going to be dramatically different in this new era. There’s the first talk about that this revolution isn’t just going to affect the lowest workers, but it’s actually going to start affecting middle class – engineers, lawyers, you know, for the first time, this technology is going to affect all different socio-economic groups of people.

Cohen: What was the moment, the light switch, when you got drawn into doing this?

Jidenna: Well, becoming independent. I didn’t have the resources. And so I had to figure out, how do I create a rollout without any assistance? And literally, that’s why I keep bringing up being 16. I didn’t have that at 16. So, yeah, you have your money. You don’t want to put your own money in, you want OPM. You want other people’s money. If you don’t have that at the time, then you have to figure out an unorthodox way to get things done.

And Gen AI was the way. I didn’t know it at the time. I was just styling myself. I don’t want to do my hair, my clothes. And that actually, my first prompt is in there. It was a band of Rastafarians wearing kilts. I’m from Nigeria, but half my family’s Nigerian, half my family’s Irish and Scottish. So I learned, how do I combine that in a way that makes me look cool? And I started wearing that after I had already prompted it. So it’s not really artificial if you start – even if you create a semblance of what you want to become, if I’m wearing it, if I become it, it’s not fake. It’s no more fake than somebody posting the happy days in their life. Social media is, to me, more fake than what I do. But they call it artificial and they don’t call it art.

Cohen: My life’s mission has always been to have a world where there are more artists and songwriters making music, and one of the most important parts of what we do is the responsibility part. And that’s why you saw us publish with many of our partners a manifesto about responsibility, and I think that it’s one of the most important parts of this innovation is how do we navigate protecting songwriters and artists?

Jidenna: For me, when I think about artists and artists’ rights, of course, none of us in here wants our likeness to be used for an AI visual, so thank you for doing the work that you do. We need that. Nobody wants our art to be trained without our consent. We need that.

There’s a precedent. It’s called sampling. You can’t sample our records without somebody calling you up like, “Hey, bro, I heard your new song, I know where it comes from.

Cohen: If you’re engaged with (AI) you can probably help shape and inform as we think through what it means to be responsible.

Jidenna: Absolutely. And I think it’s also important to understand the historical context of art. I’m a visual artist first, and when I started working in visual arts, I used to paint based on Monet’s work and Impressionism. I literally looked at Monet and then I copied it.

When I walk past a bunch of art, what I’m doing is I’m inhaling it so I can output it. The legends here of hip hop, they know it. That’s what we do, but we try to make something that did not exist prior. That’s what makes it interesting. Copying alone is boring.

And Picasso said, “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” What did he mean by that? To me, when I steal something, it’s MINE now. If I take it, how do I twist it? How do I put my imprint on it to make it interesting? Otherwise it’s not really interesting.”