{"id":232525,"date":"2025-09-17T00:17:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T00:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/232525\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T00:17:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T00:17:14","slug":"youtube-google-music-chief-lyor-cohen-rapper-jidenna-hail-the-age-of-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/232525\/","title":{"rendered":"YouTube-Google Music Chief Lyor Cohen, Rapper Jidenna Hail The Age Of AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBefore the discussion about the future of music and AI<\/a> between YouTube<\/a>\/Google music chief Lyor Cohen and rapper-singer Jidenna<\/a> had even begun, striking images filled the screen.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was the official music video for the Wu-Tang Clan\u2019s latest single, \u201cMandingo,\u201d every photorealistic frame of which was made with Google AI video generator Veo 2. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen I saw that, I almost fell out of my chair,\u201d Cohen said at the event Monday night. \u201cI would challenge anybody to say, \u2018That\u2019s not art.\u2019 I think it\u2019s absolutely artistic, and it\u2019s incredibly well done. And they\u2019re not alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJidenna spent the next half-hour detailing his evolution from musical artist to AI-savvy multi-hyphenate, pausing at the beginning to greet Busta Rhymes, Chuck D and Wyclef. The hip-hop legends were among the crowd of a few dozen in a screening room at New York\u2019s recently opened branch of private club San Vicente.<\/p>\n

\n\tA sizable social following and hits like the Grammy-nominated 2015 track \u201cClassic Man\u201d came during Jidenna\u2019s major-label days. Today, he is charting a decidedly independent course and has thrown himself into the booming realm of computer-generated video.<\/p>\n

\n\tA direct line can be drawn between the rise of hip-hop and the ascent of AI, Jidenna maintained. \u201cWe\u2019re at a point where those of us who may have been marginalized by whatever reason, are taking a tool, and figuring out what we can do with it,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd just like hip hop, they say it\u2019s not art. Just like hip hop, they say, \u2018Oh, that\u2019s illegal. You can\u2019t do that. The models are trained on other people\u2019s data.\u2019 That\u2019s what we call sampling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Google has a clear incentive in promoting AI, the conversation was noteworthy for not tiptoeing around the many worries about technology that are vexing the entertainment business. While there were passing acknowledgements of copyright protection, the perils of deepfakes, and the need for evolved business models, the prevailing message was of the \u201ccome to Jesus\u201d variety.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s no way to block this from happening,\u201d Cohen said. \u201cSo my thought is to get on our front foot, embrace this moment, let\u2019s believe in the fact that really talented, creative people can take it to the next level.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJidenna said plunging into the unknown is critical. \u201cYou have to not be afraid of that leap,\u201d he said. And for many of us, that is a very scary moment. But if you embrace it, trust me, I learned everything\u201d through trial and error.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo provide legal context, Cohen called on YouTube Music<\/a> senior corporate counsel Kevin Montler, who was seated in the audience. Asked for his take on the current state of AI, Montler said, \u201cThe tech is ahead of the law. And it\u2019s ahead of where, even within industry groups, both on the tech side, and on the rightsholdolders\u2019 side, we\u2019re not seeing continuity in position. I think everybody\u2019s trying to figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAddressing his own take on the legal uncertainty, Jidenna affirmed that artists shouldn\u2019t have their work used to train AI models without consent, or have video generators create unauthorized images based on their likenesses. Still, he agreed with Montler\u2019s point, noting that he attended Stanford University at the same time as OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman. \u201cI do not think that we have the system that\u2019s gonna be fast enough to catch up with tech,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tResponding to charges of AI images too often looking \u201cfake,\u201d he said they are \u201cno more fake than somebody posting the happy days in their life. Social media, to me, is more fake than what I do. But they call it artificial.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe speed at which AI is evolving was another theme of the talk. Cohen asked about how often the tools change and Jidenna replied, \u201cEvery week.\u201d Living in L.A. has enabled him to build connections in the film industry, and he said workers in the industry refer to the first day of the week as \u201cMiserable Monday\u201d because it is when new technology disruptions arrive. \u201cI call it \u2018Magical Monday.’\u201d he smiled. \u201cIf you don\u2019t embrace change, it\u2019s gonna be miserable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before the discussion about the future of music and AI between YouTube\/Google music chief Lyor Cohen and rapper-singer…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":232526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[691,738,125293,16994,158,67,132,68,3894,52559],"class_list":{"0":"post-232525","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-jidenna","11":"tag-techline","12":"tag-technology","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us","16":"tag-youtube","17":"tag-youtube-music"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115216766897644375","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}