Space150 create ‘TravisBott’ algorithm that makes deepfake Travis Scott songs

On the surface it sounds like another formulaic song from a known hit maker, but there’s a lot more to it than meets the ear.

There’s something very bizarre about a song that was released online last month.

On the surface it looks and sounds like a new track from Travis Scott, the Grammy-nominated 27-year-old Houston rapper behind hits like Sicko Mode and Goosebumps.

But Scott isn’t performing it. He didn’t produce it, and he didn’t write it.

In fact, nobody wrote it (and we don’t mean it in the “Jay-Z never writes any of his bars down” way).

The song, titled Jack Park Canny Dope Man and attributed to an artist called TravisBott, was written by an artificial intelligence neural network that was fed lyrics from the real life Scott for weeks before spitting out a pretty passable imitation.

The roughly 10,000 line song was cut down to the two-and-a-half minutes you can hear in the video.

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The project is the work of content agency Space150.

Executive creative director Ned Lampert told Adweekthe project was more of a proof-of-concept and not something a client had commissioned.

“We were sort of fascinated with like, ‘What if we tried to make a song – like an actual good song – by using AI and basically creative directing AI?‘” he said. “And so we chose Travis Scott just because he is just such a unique artist and he has a unique sound and everything sort of has an aesthetic to it, both audibly and visually.”

Once the algorithm had chewed up Scott’s lyrics and spat out its own take on them, it was time for the actual recording to begin.

Another rapper from Texas by the name of So-So Topic was brought into the project to add his voice.

“I originally became involved in the TravisBott project after most of the grunt work was already done by the AI program,” Topic told news.com.au over email.

“I was called in by a musician friend from Texas named Kevin Simon for an “interesting project’, Kevin introduces me to Josh, who tells me a bit about the project that they were doing over at Space150, and it was so damn unbelievable that I just had to get involved.”

Once he became involved though he was less taken with some of the actual lyrics the algorithm had come up with.

“I thought that the lyrics the AI generated were 95 per cent garbage, but the other 5 per cent hidden among the trash ended up being some really great lines. I also feel like in that 5 per cent, there are a few things that the real Travis may hear and say, ‘Huh. Now why didn’t I think of that …?’”

It may sort of look and kind of sound like Travis Scott, but it's not

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The lyrics aren’t exactly illegible, so much as they just don’t make much sense (though the success of groundbreaking artists like Young Thug has shown that’s not necessarily a deal-breaker).

But in some areas the AI-generated lyrics sound like they’ve come direct from Scott’s pen.

Lines like “thinkin’ at the Grammys, in the family, I got stars” (Scott has a daughter with Kylie Jenner) and “I got all my old b**ches mad by the bars” sound eerily like something Scott would have spat himself (potentially referencing the exes he suggested placing in a group on an earlier song).

While the algorithm could generate lyrics it, appears it’s yet to master how to flow on beat however.

“One of the main challenges we faced while recording was rewriting quite a bit of these incredibly nonsensical lyrics to fit in a four-bar pattern — the AI had a tendency to spit a barrage of run on sentences littered with slang words it created itself, it was so difficult to put the verse down” Topic told news.com.au.

“Literally every fourteen seconds we had to stop to laugh, re-evaluate, and give it another shot. It took a few hours to do that record,” he said, adding that it was still “easily one of the best recording experiences ever”.

The algorithm also produced the rhythm and melody for the beat, though a human touch was required to turn those ideas into sounds you could hear.

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The video is also a mash-up of deepfake technology and the real world

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Unlike manufacturing and service workers who have been under threat from technology and automation taking their jobs for years now, so-called “knowledge workers” and creative professionals tend to consider themselves immune from the threat of artificial intelligence.

That no longer looks certain.

But Topic reckons it’s not the creative apocalypse some may fear, and that the algorithms will always be chasing the next trends rather than setting them. That job will remain with the more creative artists.

“As an artist, I feel like this type of tech could potentially pose a threat to those who have grown comfortable with the pop music formula,” Topic said. “Like there is officially an algorithm that can do your job. How will you adapt?

“I feel like freethinkers – people who still produce soulful, unquantised music – they’ll be just fine. I’d also hope that this whole Travis Bott project serves as a wake up call for the overly formulaic to loosen up a bit, and experiment with new directions.”

Do you think musicians and artists can ever be fully replaced by a computer code? Have your say in the comments below.