FN Meka: The Avatar Rapper

The story of FN Meka — a fictitious character billed as the first musical artist partly powered by artificial intelligence to be signed by a major record label — might seem like a bizarre one-off if you have not been paying attention to the digital world.

But to seasoned observers of technology in pop music and the debate over cultural appropriation, the rise and fall of this so-called robot rapper, whose songs were written and voiced by humans, has raised important questions that are not going away anytime soon.

In this episode, we discuss the controversy surrounding FN Meka, including  him being signed by Capital Records and the stereotypes embedded in this avatar.