Eminem has Slim Shady, Nicki Minaj has Roman Zolanski, and Lil Yachty-- well, Lil Yachty has Lil Boat.

In hip-hop, alter egos and stage personas are nothing new.

They allow us to explore and experiment with identity and sometimes break away from the limitations and expectations of our real-world selves.

With the rise of 3D communities, live virtual performances, and multiplayer gaming, artists are exploring new ways to transform and craft their personas for virtual worlds.

But what happens when they misrepresent our communities and identities?

[music] Whether it's in the images in our Twitter handle, the character we create in video games, or even the emojis we use to represent ourselves in text messages, these avatars--our digital alter egos-- are part of how we interact and express ourselves.

They can take on many different forms, each with different levels of creativity and customization.

Within hip-hop, there's always been some history of everybody kinda having an alter ego, dressing up to play a character, using graffiti culture, DJ, MC culture that might fit a certain song or song concept.

Probably one of the best hip-hop examples of a leap from alter ego to avatar is that of MF Doom.

[music] Doom wore a metal mask inspired by Dr. Doom, the comic book supervillain.

MF Doom's mask concealed his identity and pushed fans to privilege the art, the character, and the storytelling.

I think it allowed him to have some commentary on the use of image in hip-hop and kind of commenting on the farce that is those characters.

So it's super meta in that way because he's like a character dissing rappers for being characters.

Musicians Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett took this idea one step further.

They created Gorillaz, a virtual band composed of four animated characters.

These avatars provided the band greater freedom to create a unique multimedia world for fans through emerging technologies.

Today, the idea of using avatars is becoming more commonplace, especially in pop music and entertainment.

But as audiences become accustomed to the artist as the avatar and the avatar as the artist, what happens when corporations remove the artists and their communities from the equation?

What happens when the avatar reinforces the cultural biases and misperceptions of our societies all for the sake of profit?

In 2022, Capitol Records agreed to a distribution deal with FN Meka, a virtual rapper.

Factory New, a record label and tech company created the character and hyped it up by maintaining that everything about Meka was AI-generated except his voice.

It really woke up the entire hip-hop community.

AI, new AI rapper, AI rapper, AI rapper, it triggered everybody.

I think at a time where people of color, especially in the hip-hop community, are not doing the best financially post-COVID, the last thing we wanted to hear was an AI-generated avatar owned by a corporation that is about to explode across the scene.

Again, we're a tight-knit community, so it's like, "Who gave you permission?

Who did you talk to?

Who did you run this by?"

In the aftermath of the Capitol Records deal, Industry Blackout, a collective of music executives committed to social change in the entertainment business condemned the avatar.

They argued that FN Meka was a caricature of hip-hop that reinforced stereotypes about Black culture and perpetuated a long history of exploiting Black artists and Black art.

It almost seems like too convenient of an opportunity to have a Black artist without having to deal with a Black artist and any sensitivities there, but artists, in general, have to interact with culture, especially after there just being so much more awareness of everything from exploitation of Black artists in the music business, to caricatures, to stereotypes.

All of these conversations were pretty recently on everyone's radar.

FN Meka is not the first and certainly won't be the last example of cultural appropriation and perpetuating racial stereotypes for profit.

Whatever the gendered version of digital Black face might be, potentially exploiting women, which is also a group that the music industry has traditionally had major issues controlling the livelihood of female artists, makes you wonder if some of the intent behind having a female avatar artist would be, "Okay, we get the female without having to deal with the sensitivities of working with a woman."

So, how do we create avatars that are ethical and sincere while allowing for creativity, experimentation, and exploration?

[music] For people who may not know who or what Lil Bitcoin is, -did you want to break it down?

-Yes.

I'm going to keep it short.

Lil Bitcoin is an avatar rapper created by Satoshi to protect decentralization.

It's a comic book story.

It's Drake and Superman in one.

Let's say Lil Bitcoin gets signed to a record label.

It's not just me as the voice behind it, it's me, it's Lexi, it's Claudia, it's Diante, it's television.

So, the idea that we had was to decentralize an influencer, or in this case an entertainer, so that all of the different hands that had to do with creating Lil Bitcoin could enjoy the fruits of the labor.

I think it's a really cool way for artists who may not necessarily want to be the focal point of the attention or they may have a team and they don't have a way to support the entire team or to bring the entire team with them.

One of the biggest challenges that we face of marketing an avatar is creating a personality behind the character because a lot of people do see just a character and they're not sure, okay, is this a person?

But avatars are run by normal people.

Avatars allow artists to explore new identities and genres outside of the industry's expectations.

We were headed towards a very interesting place with hip-hop where it was starting to feel stagnated.

And this really kinda opens up Pandora's box for a whole lot more.

It's really-- We can create whatever we want to create.

We can tie it to blockchain technology.

We can tie it to NFTs, to memberships, to utility.

And that really provides for a whole new world of experiences and then bring that to the metaverse.

Now for me, all I want is to make sure that the creative really get paid.

One of my main inspirations for this project is there's often disparities when it comes to tech and urban communities.

I think hip-hop is a very powerful vehicle in order to onboard minority communities into Web 3.

We got a huge responsibility to bring that forward and really represent the culture that we're coming from and do it the right way because we're the ones that's doing it.

I would definitely consider signing an avatar artist if I really had a true understanding and good feeling about the intent.

To me, I think there's a huge amount of opportunity there.

Some of the advantages, again, would be you don't have to deal with the emotional and mental health and physical health of an artist who needs to tour constantly.

I think as long as it's connected to someone's true sense of expression, I'd be super interested in that.

Between the excitement of AI mixed with the graphic technology of creating avatars, for me, what's most important is the morals and ethics surrounding it, and that there are clear structures around how we create these things and who manages those things.

When we remove the artists and their communities from the equation, avatars can reinforce the cultural biases and misperceptions of our societies.

The efforts to incorporate hip-hop more and more into the tech space must stay rooted in the community's cultures and values that shape the art form.

Thanks for watching.

What does your avatar look like?

Does it have to look like you?

Let us know in the comments.

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Whoa, whoa, whoa, too much air.

Too much air.

Come on.

Let's decrease that a bit.

That's better.