AI's Untapped Potential For Music

Seems Twitter is determined to protect Lil Baby at all costs from the Kardashian curse. Reply to this email with your best explanation of the Kardashian curse and the winner will be shouted out next week. Hint: has anyone checked in on Ben Simmons whose Brooklyn Nets team was just swept from the NBA playoffs? In other news today:

• Billboard Hot 100 & album sales 📈 

• Drake’s It’s All A Blur tour updates 💰️ 

• A$AP Rocky shoots a video in Paris 🎥 

• Lil Durk on his new album, therapy & India Royale

• AI’s untapped potential for music 🤖 

• Up Your Aux: Swizz Beatz & NBA YoungBoy 🎵 

• Jay-Z’s $28 million Rolls Royce 💧 

• Industry Insights

Hot 100 Chart & Streams

The above chart shows Billboard’s Hot 100 ranking, as of today, and the corresponding song streams for the week of April 14-20th as reported by Hits Double Daily. Hot 100 ranks songs based on a combination of streaming activity, radio airplay audience impressions, and sales data—all measured by Luminate.

Ice Spice’s “Princess Diana” remix with Nicki Minaj debuts at #4 this week. There were rumors that the song’s producer, RiotUSA, was offering to pay fans on Twitter to purchase the song in an effort to boost its Hot 100 position as Billboard’s current model of ranking favors a bought song over a streamed song.

Drake’s “Search & Rescue” drops from #2 to #9 this week, proving not to be another No. 1 song for the hitmaker. Post Malone’s “Chemicals” debuts at #13 and Toosii’s “Favorite Song” holds steady at #14 for the second week in a row.

Album Sales

NBA YoungBoy’s new album, Don’t Try This At Home, is projected to sell 60-65K units for first week sales according to HDD. It’s double the 29K first-week sales of his 2022 album I Rest My Case and would place him in the Top 5 of the Billboard 200 chart.

Drake Adds and Reschedules ‘It’s All A Blur’ Tour Dates

After Drake upset Twitter with ticket prices for his It’s All A Blur tour with 21 Savage, more changes have been made. This includes new dates, in cities previously not scheduled for the Her Loss collaborators, and rescheduled dates—to many fans' dismay.

The good news is for fans who live in Columbus, Memphis, Denver, Austin, Charlotte, and Toronto where new dates have been added. The tour will be closing in Drake’s hometown of Toronto on October 5th and 7th. For fans that live in Inglewood, Brooklyn, Glendale, and Nashville, and weren’t able to secure tickets during the first sale, additional dates have been added.

However, those grieving, punching the air, or in an imaginary fight with Drake, probably live in New Orleans, Nashville, Houston, Dallas, Miami, and Atlanta where the tour was scheduled to stop between June 16th and July 2nd has now been rescheduled for September 14th to October 2nd. Sorry for your loss.

This will be Drake’s first headlining tour since Aubrey & the Three Migos in 2018. The Cash App presale for new dates takes place tomorrow (Wednesday, April 26th) at 12pm local time. Full tour dates can be found here.

A$AP Rocky Shot a Video in Paris Fuelling Album Buzz

He’s a runner, he’s a timbs star….A$AP Rocky was spotted sprinting down the streets of Paris last weekend for what appears to be a video shoot. You know he’s from New York when he can run full speed, in Timberlands, with no belt, and sagging jeans.

It’s unclear if the footage is for a music video or general promotion for his forthcoming album Don’t Be Dumb, rumored to drop this year. The footage has fans excited at the prospect of new music and lest not forget—one thing A$AP knows how to deliver is a great music video.

The 2021 paparazzi photos of him and Rihanna in Timberlands and colored fur ended up being for his “D.M.B” video which included a wedding and proposal grillz (best rap proposal of all time?). His visuals have always been next-level and a testament to his creativity, often directing them himself.

If you need a refresher, watch the immaculate NY meets London video for “Praise The Lord” ft. Skepta or the trippy “A$AP Forever” video with camera rotations superior to Atlanta’s season 2 teaser and Hitchcock-inspired dolly zooms.

Lil Durk on His New Album, Therapy, and India Royale

Lil Durk, who loves a good cryptic IG story, sat down with XXL to chat about some things—on the record with no reading between the lines required. Namely, his forthcoming album The Voice 2.0 which is set to release in the coming weeks.

What’s confirmed for ‘The Voice 2.0’?

The unreleased cover art captures Durk’s evolution and was created by A$AP Rocky and his creative agency, AWGE. The album itself is a product of Durk’s personal and musical growth, leveling up from the geographic representation of where he’s from (voice of the streets) to a wider lens on where he is now, hence the 2.0 title.

The album includes a song with J. Cole called “All My Life”. On it, Durk tells fans what he’s been through and how he’s trying to change through rap but he needed to find the right feature.

“It’s one of those songs where if it’s not the right person to do the second verse... I feel like Cole can bring the energy that I’m looking for to it. So, if it wasn’t J. Cole, it’d be [Kanye], but Ye, he tucked away somewhere.”

Why does he post cryptic IG stories?

Like I said, if you follow Durk on IG, you know he loves a good subtweet but apparently, the intention behind his indirect vocabulary is more strategic than cowardly.

“So, anything I say or do, it be like assumptions. It’s like you can make your own. If you say this was about him, then that’s what it is, but that’s what it’s for. So, I put it out a certain type of way and don’t say a name. This could be about anybody,” Durk says about how he plays the internet game.

Why does he share his feelings about India online?

Durk maturely says that his relationship with India isn’t about rap, album sales, or competition so he doesn’t feel the need to hold back or censor himself. He clarified that he didn’t have a baby with anyone else, despite the internet rumors, and what’s said online is fake and will never affect his relationship with India

“If you go up there and say you didn’t, they still gonna say you did. So, it’s like, well, as long as the house is the house, the internet can’t change the perspective of nothing,” Durk says of why he never addressed the baby rumors.

What’s the status of albums with Metro Boomin and Future?

Durk says he’s not putting a timeline on either collaboration but it’s something he’s talked about with both rappers and would like to deliver someday. He has a thousand unreleased songs with Future and says outside of rap, they’ve always had a bond, and Future’s been giving him game since the beginning of his career.

How has therapy helped him?

Growing up in the streets, Durk never showed emotion and paranoia made it difficult to open up to others—always fearful of who he could trust. Therapy has helped him find a healthier way of dealing with the difficulties of life, saying, “I got a therapist so I cope different. You know, it don’t just gotta be I’m finna go take all these drugs, or I’m finna go get my feelings like this. I got my family, I got my girl, I got a therapist, I got my kids and I got the studio.”

AI’s Untapped Potential for Music Monetization

AI continues to be the main character in every industry but a recent surge of AI-generated songs, mimicking the most popular artists today, has evoked concern and excitement surrounding its potential impact on the music industry.

The new technology is similar to the file-sharing and piracy disruption in the 2000s that forced music to evolve from a physical sales-focused model to the streaming era we’re currently in. So, is there a future where music can co-exist with AI and fairly compensate artists for spin-offs of their work and image?

Copyright & false endorsement law explained

Copyright law protects intellectual property from being copied, reproduced, performed, or distributed without authorization from the copyright holder. However, record labels feel that this right is infringed upon when AI consumes and analyzes recordings, compositions, and lyrics to train itself on how to generate copycats.

False endorsement constitutes the unapproved misappropriation of a person’s brand and creative identity. It’s already being used in music-related legal disputes, rapper Yung Gracy is being sued by Rick Astley for a false endorsement claim, and could be relevant to future laws that safeguard AI use.

What’s the solution?

There’s an infinite amount of quotes about history repeating itself, which I’ll spare you, but in the context of music, it’s true that the future is simply a variation of the past. Similar to the Web 2.0 era, the law will have to find a way to safeguard artists’ creativity while supporting the inevitable evolution of technology.

This would be most effective by not just cracking down on unlawful use but by figuring out effective licensing frameworks to monetize and enable legit uses of AI that the general public can enjoy. If AI can mimic, it can also detect and the technology that’s so threatening could be the solution to enforcing what’s deemed a fair AI landscape.

How could AI sampling & licensing be legalized?

Sampling is an area of opportunity, allowing artists to “franchise” their likeness and style to others who would like to replicate it, for a price. Instead of listening to a song with a recognizable sample, creators could create music by manipulating AI-generated versions of so-and-so which would expand the current landscape of sampling—and your music library.

For compensation, there are many prior licensing examples that could inform AI licensing. Take the new Air movie, about Michael Jordan’s innovative partnership with Nike, MJ refused to sign the deal unless he was compensated for a percentage of every Jordan shoe sale because the brand was being built off his image, name, and likeness.

In 2022, MJ was paid $256 million by Nike per their agreement. That was more than double his entire NBA career earnings, from one year of shoe sales. AI could expand revenue streams for artists and labels.

Much like YouTube’s approach to music licensing, any profit from a user-generated video using copyrighted music goes to the record label that owns the copyright. The framework would simply shift from music being the “original” to the name, image, and likeness of an artist being the “original” and the use of such must be properly licensed.

New Swizz Beatz & NBA YoungBoy Albums

Last week’s New Music Friday included 2 big album releases. NBA YoungBoy delivered Don’t Try This At Home and Swizz Beatz released Hip Hop 50: Vol. 2. Up Your Aux with 5 of the best songs from both albums.

1. “This Sh*t Right Here” by Swizz Beatz ft. Lil Wayne (Listen on Spotify & Apple Music)

2. “Say Less” by Swizz Beatz ft. Lil Durk, A Boogie Wit da Hoodie (Listen on Spotify & Apple Music)

3. “Mr Gaulden” by NBA YoungBoy (Listen on Spotify & Apple Music)

4. “Choppa Docter” by NBA YoungBoy (Listen on Spotify & Apple Music)

5. “What You Say” by NBA YoungBoy ft. Post Malone, Kid Laroi (Listen on Spotify & Apple Music)

Jay-Z’s $28 Million Rolls-Royce Boat Tail

You may remember in 2021 it was rumored that Jay-Z and Beyoncé commissioned a one-of-one Rolls Royce Boat Tail priced at $28 million. Aside from the price tag, which is not so ridiculous when you remember the couple's combined net worth is over $1 billion, the car has a few/ interesting features unique to Hov and Bey.

The blue interior leather, used to compliment the car’s blue finish, is called “Blue Ivy” like their daughter. The rear features a deck designed to hold a picnic set-up with a fridge set to 6 degrees Celsius for Armand de Brignac luxury vintage champagne—aka Jay-Z’s Ace of Spades brand co-owned with LVMH.

The car was designed to be evocative of the roads of Cote D’Azur—a vacation spot favored by the couple. Lastly, it’s rumored that Jay-Z signed the Rolls Royce “Spirit of Ecstacy” ornamental sculpture mounted on the front hood and Beyoncé signed the rear badge, coupled with both signatures on the engine.

• Spotify hits the 515 million users mark, up 22% from Q1 of last year but their ratio of premium subscribers continues to decline to 40%.

• Benny The Butcher shares release date for Hit-Boy collab album. Everybody Can’t Go is scheduled to arrive on August 11th, 2023.

• Songwriter Louis Bell sets new RIAA record with 8 Diamond-certified singles. 6 of which are in collaboration with Post Malone.

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