FN Meka: Capitol Records cuts ties with ‘disrespectful’ artificial intelligence rapper and apologises to ‘the Black community’

An American record label has apologised to “the Black community”, after signing an AI artist that has been deemed “offensive” and likened to digital blackface.

Capitol Music Group teased its latest project - the first artist powered partly by an artificial intelligence to “sign” to a major label - on August 12.

A debut single from the robot rapper FN Meka, Florida Water, was released that same day.

However, the record label has now announced that following the backlash, it would sever its ties with the virtual rapper, who has over 10 million followers on TikTok.

The company has apologised in a statement saying: “We offer our deepest apologies to the Black community for our insensitivity in signing this project without asking enough questions about equity and the creative process behind it.

“We thank those who have reached out to us with constructive feedback in the past couple of days — your input was invaluable as we came to the decision to end our association with the project.”

Listeners have said that not only is FN Meka blackfacing, but the song also make light of serious subjects such as incarceration and police brutality.

Activist nonprofit group Industry Blackout released a statement yesterday, calling for a “public apology” from the record label.

It also asked that all money spent on the latest project should “be allocated to charitable organizations that directly support black youth in the arts”.

Capitol Music Group has worked with artists such as Hasley, Katy Perry, Paul McCartney and Aitch.

FN Meka was also backed by Factory New - a company which describes itself as a “first of its kind, next-generation music company, specializing in virtual beings”.

Music lovers have taken to Twitter to voice their opinion on the AI artist being dropped from his label.

One person wrote: “The FN Meka conversation is so much bigger than the blatant racism. We now have confirmed labels want to figure out how to “self checkout” the artist and A&R but nobody says that.”

Another commented: “Let’s be completely real here, FN Meka was probably not created by Black or Brown creatives and for Capitol to sign that over really well deserving artist in the first place just shows how much they don’t care about the music industry anymore and that tends carry more weight.”