(Credits: Collision Conf / Stage Zero)
Timbaland has launched a new artificial intelligence entertainment company, Stage Zero, and announced the creation of a new AI artist. TaTa is the name of the non-human artist, and is set to be one of many personas launched by the company.
The hip-hop producer, known for his work with Jay-Z, Missy Elliott and Justin Timberlake, co-founded Stage Zero alongside creative partner Zayd Portillo and film producer Rocky Mudaliar. They want their AI characters to become virtual influencers and star in movies and TV shows.
Mudaliar told Rolling Stone, ”Ultimately what Tim’s here to do is to pioneer a new genre of music — A-pop, artificial pop.” TaTa is set to release a debut single soon, supported by social media pages and music videos created with AI tools.
TaTa’s music will be the work of both humans and the AI music platform, Suno. Timbaland uploads demos to Suno, then extrapolates them and inserts human-written lyrics. “It came to a point where I’m like, ‘Yo, this voice, it’s amazing,’” he said about TaTa.
Portillo added, “We have these stacks of music that needed to be finished. And then it just so happened that the TaTa ones were just getting finished faster. There was just something about those songs that were just like. ‘Man, this just flows.’”
Timbaland is no stranger to using AI and even made an AI-generated Biggie Smalls track in 2023. Understandably, people have voiced their concern about creating music using AI, but the producer has stuck to his guns. He stated AI voice filters would “open up an unprecedented world of creativity in music” and hoped his startup would “usher in the new era.”
Speaking on the backlash against AI, Mudaliar said, ”It’s gonna be a bit of a battle, but it’s not going anywhere…. We were thinking about the example of the influencer itself and how ridiculous that might’ve sounded 10 years ago, where we’re like, ‘Nah, there’s no way YouTubers can be bigger than actors.’ And now they’re the biggest stars in the world.”
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