Meet Nigerian Man Creating AI-Powered Afrobeats Musicians

It looks like AI is the new game-changer around the world, and now, it is trying to make its way into Nigerian mainstream through music.

Eclipse Nkasi, a Nigerian music producer is using AI to create Afrobeats music. Nkasi used the technology to create a whole new album by using OpenAI's ChatGPT to write lyrics to the 9 songs on the AI-generated album, before using another AI tool to generate the tunes. Nkasi then went on to record some vocals, and fed them into yet another app which transformed his vocals into the voice of the album's generated singer Mya Blue.

During a new interview with Arise News, Eclipse Nkasi opened up about why he decided to do this, why he thinks this is a good thing for everybody, and why he doesn't think it takes away from the work of human musicians. Here's what Nkasi - the man behind the AI-powered music had to say.

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Speaking about why he's doing AI-powered Afrobeats music and all the good things he sees about it, Eclipse Nkasi said:

ECLIPSE NKASI: I wanted to find out what was possible with AI, which means, there were several parameters I needed to test. Songwriting, production, voice creation, and so on and so forth. When it comes to AI and music, one of the biggest things it does is that for people who are music minded, but don't necessarily have the skillset or the "talent" - like you can't really sing - but you understand music, you know what good music sounds like, you have a fair chance of actually creating music that matters. Because there are tools now that you can input, that you can guide and ultimately it would interpret the ideas that you have. And that's a new kind of artiste, and I think that this doesn't take away from what other people are doing. What it's doing is empowering even more people. In the end, this is just a tool which is why I'm a strong advocate for the ethical use of AI and going forward, it is my plan to host maybe workshops and certain trainings to help more people embrace AI.

If you're curious to see what the AI-powered Afrobeats songs sound like, here is Mya Blue's cover of Davido's "Kante".

What do you think of the song, and about what Eclipse Nkasi is doing? Let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment either below or on my Jide Okonjo Facebook post.

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