This rap song is a back-and-forth featuring two voices. One voice is a guy called AllttA. The other voice is one that sounds like Jay-Z. But, the “Jay-Z” is not actually the rapper Shawn Carter, but an AI generated voice.
For a guy who has consumed as much hip-hop as anyone else, this is incredible.
For our purposes, let’s call this AI voice, “JAI-Z” (get it?)
First, when I heard JAI-Z, I immediately thought that this sounds like the Jay-Z from the Volume 1 era. His voice has definitely changed over the years. And the voice here absolutely sounds like something from the 90s. Not that it’s bad, but simply that it’s changed and this sounds like him from a younger era. So for me, I would’ve thought this was a lost verse.
Second, JAI-Z’s verses aren’t as clever as Jay-Z’s typically is. He usually comes out with more metaphors, similes, and double entendres (his favorite). JAI-Z was just spitting bars. Now, it all sounds really good, but it’s just not the typical Jigga.
Additionally, there was some point in the second verse where I would have expected him to change his rhyming pattern entirely. He would have paused and shortened a bar, but he keeps flowing with the same cadence. My take isn’t gospel truth – it’s simply me riffing based on a couple of decades listening to Jay.
But all in all, this is incredible. I heard about this from a recent Youtube posting video by Marques Brownlee. I think the quote that stuck with me was, “this is AI at its worst.” Which basically means as impressive and indistinguishable from what you’d think the actual rapper’s voice would be, it’s only going to get even more indistinguishable from here.
Somewhat scary, but likely inevitable.