Social Media Roasts Timbaland’s ‘Weird’ AI-Generated Collab With The Notorious B.I.G.

Thanks to artificial intelligence, super producer Timbaland finally landed his dream collaboration with the late rapper Notorious B.I.G. But it’s receiving mixed reactions on social media.

On Wednesday, the Grammy Award-winning producer took to Instagram to share a snippet of a new song he created using AI-generated vocals of the late Biggie Smalls.

“Alright so, I’m sitting here with my brother, Creatr God, and we know that it’s a lot of talk about AI and we know how the feelings of violating certain things,” he says in the video. “But let me tell you something: I got a solution, I’m working on it. It’s gon’ be beneficial to everybody.”

“But, in the meantime, I gotta share something I’ve been working on because I always wanted to do this and I never got a chance to,” he continued.

“I always wanted to work with Big and I never got a chance to — until today. It came out right! Play!”

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A post shared by Timbo the King (@timbaland)

In the caption for the Instagram post, Timbaland tagged JAY-Z’s longtime engineer Young Guru, who has been an outspoken critic of using AI voice technology.

“This rite here [eye emojis] [rocket emojis] [exploding head emojis] @creatrgod @youngguru763 I had tooo [shocked face emojis],” Timbaland wrote. “A I [crown emoji] is timbo [key emoji] everything original timbo x biggie.”

But after sharing the song snippet, Timbaland’s followers disapproved of the AI-generated feature.

“Nah, this ain’t it. It’s not Big either so what is there to be excited about really,” one user wrote. “We got enough bull destroying Hip Hop and the Culture.”

“I really don’t know how to feel about this (as a huge BIG fan),” added someone else. “This is hard asf but, all I keep asking myself is…if I was Big would I want people making their own version of me?”

The responses were stronger on Twitter after Timbalands’ AI song snippet was reposted by one user who deemed it a “momentous moment in music history.”

This is a momentous moment in music history!

Timbaland explains how he always had a dream to collab with Biggie, but never had the chance to.

Thanks to AI, he was able to make that dream a reality.

Disclaimer, THE SONG IS FIREEE 🔥 pic.twitter.com/DPMj8wJxln

— Joseph Abehsera (@KingzTheCreator) May 3, 2023

“Idk but him making it sound like this is him finally getting to work with Big but its AI is weird,” one user wrote in response.

“Please pass this to Ross,” added someone else.

However, many have shared their approval for the AI-generated feature, and the support highlights what could come from the emergence of AI-generated music.