Viral Music and AI

If you haven't heard this song yet, you are definitely not living on the Internet or social media. If so, are you living under the rock?

I consider myself a light SM user: I only use Facebook to stay connected with friends, LinkedIn professionally, and BlueSky to stay informed about politics. I have no X, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Telegram (it's KGB-run now), Pintrest or any other social media accounts. Don't even know how Discord works. If Vocal is considered SM, I probably spend most of my Internet time here.

And yet, this song is everywhere on my two timelines. The Afro Soul version of it in the cover image was released a little over a month ago and already raked up over 15M views on YouTube. There are countless versions and covers of it on TikTok by many known and unknown artists and influencers.

Yesterday, this version of it showed up in my feed and I was shocked to see the artist and find out that he is a Russian citizen, originally from Congo. I need to do more research into this, but any Russian connection always shocks me, in both good and bad ways. The main shock came from the knowledge that this video is just lip-syncing. Even though it's presented as a cover, it's nothing but the artist lending his face and the expressive emotions to the song without actual singing. Just opening his mouth. Why, you'd ask? Especially because he is a talented singer who competed in the Russian version of the Voice and other talent shows. We'll get into that later.

Countless versions of this song are seeping into my FB reels in one-minute chunks, and some are better than others but all are pulling the strings of my heart. There's something about Afrobeat and Afro Soul that does it to me, just pulls and sucks me in. It really is mesmerizing.

The song has become a truly global phenomenon. Here's just a snapshot of "Who Sang it Better" shorts what are available on YouTube by people from all over the world. There are many more of them:

Here's one of my favorite shorts, by an a capella artist I follow on FB. In the comments, people are seriously discussing if this short was an AI. But AI cannot yet reproduce Daniel's unique hand movements (he says it helps him "feel his voice"), his braid's ends moving to the beat and his Adam's apple contracting on glottal sounds. Yes, these are the subtle things you need to pay attention to now that AI is getting so much better in rendering humans and our movements, well beyond six fingers and feet instead of hands merely months ago. Besides, in his other videos Daniel has shown how he creates the polyphonic sound by overlaying multiple versions of his own voice into one track.

This whole discussion has distressed me because it shows how people are quickly losing faith in original human creativity by questioning if everything they like as "polished" and "perfect" is being generated by AI.

And there is a reason why people have doubts. It's because the song in the cover was made by AI trained on the voice of the artist, in this case the lip-syncing Arsène Mukendi. Here's an excellent video explaining how it was done:

This raises so many questions that we now have to grapple with: What do you do with this type of music? Ethically, are you allowed to enjoy it if it's AI-generated? What if it is blessed by the artist who'd lent his voice and face to the song and allowed the AI to be trained on it to perfection (that might be the reason for Mukendi lip-syncing the song rather than performing it, because he would never achieve the same level of perfection as AI)? And the most important question is, how should you feel about the fact that the original song was released more than 12 years ago by a uniquely talented artist with a tragic personal story?

Here's the song in question, by then a teenage Belgian artist Stromae (as he explained, his stage name is a flipped-syllabi version of 'maestro'), with almost 1.2 billion views on it now. I wonder how many of them added since January this year. At least a dozen of them are mine:

The differences are indeed palpable, with the AfroBeat making it almost a unique song far removed from the original. You can find solace in the fact that Stromae's song is entirely human-made, even though it also sends conflicting messages: It has an excellent dance rhythm but would you dance to it if you knew it is about an absentee father?

The story behind this song is really dramatic. Stromae wrote it as a reflection on his own childhood where he saw his absentee care-free father a handful of times in his entire life, as well as Stromae's anxiety about his own future as a father, without having a good role model. But there's a wrinkle to this: Stromae's father was killed in the Rwandan genocide and many people read this song as his longing for the father who was tragically taken away from him. So that is another layered ethical dimension to the song: Many people relate to it because they see it as a tribute to their good fathers who recently passed away.

As someone whose deadbeat father left us when I was 5 and my sister - 2, I relate more to the original intent of the song. I also tricked my mind into thinking that it is about an absentee God rather than a human father. As an atheist, this allows me to truly enjoy the song. And dance to it.

By the way, I am sure that Stromae is an excellent father, perhaps not thanks to but despite his absentee father. It happens with good people: They strive to be better and compensate to their kids for what they lacked in their own childhood. This Stromae's interview will give you a better understanding of this incredibly talented artist, a huge sensation in Belgium, Francophone world, Europe, and globally:

I've seen discussions on the Internet where people are really lamenting about whether they should enjoy Mukendi-AI song, especially from those who believe that AI "has no soul" and will replace us all and see this as a harbinger of replacement. I'm also thinking about it a lot, and am trying to frame it as an example of a successful collaboration between humans and AI-savvy digital producers (after all, the song would have been impossible if the AI was not trained on Mukendi's unique raspy voice).

To me another test question is, how does Stromae feel about it? Does he consider it plagiarism, ripoff, and/or exploitation of his talent? He didn't say a word so far but judging by the fact that there are no lawsuits filed, he probably doesn't mind additional exposure to his original song. It also must not be knew to him: His original song was covered many times with millions of views on those covers. Here's one, by my favorite Pentatonix:

And there is even more exposure now, with the viral dance to the Mukendi-AI version that is a major TicTok trend as well. This guy alone made at least 15 clips of it, including a step-by-step instruction video and the trending "100% vs 15%" version, which I like the most. The kid version of it is worth checking out as well.

To add more to the discussion, below is the English version of the song, thankfully very faithful to the original French lyrics. If you read the comments to it you will realize how many people regret that they happily danced to this song without understanding the true meaning of it. I am not sure if this version of the song is not AI-generated as well:

There's also a Muslim version of the song that resonated with me even stronger because the artist openly made it about the absence of God rather than a human father, with all the human suffering that is allowed to happen on earth now. I am surprised Ayatollah has not issued a fatwa for it yet. Perhaps not a social media user either?

There's so much of this song everywhere now! I heard it yesterday at a supermarket in Tbilisi where I do my grocery shopping and on public busses in fellow passengers' smartphones. I am at the point where I think my fridge is singing it to me.

How do you get an earworm out of your head?

P.S. Vocal needs to add an AI tag for the 01 Community stories.