The musician shared more of her thoughts on the future of music in relation to AI technology at the International Music Summit (IMS) in Ibiza last week.
Grimes gave a keynote speech at the annual IMS event in Ibiza last Friday (28 April). Sharing her anti-copyright stance in relation to the music industry and the future of AI in music she said, “I feel strongly that there’s way too much gatekeeping in music. Copyright sucks. Art is a conversation with everyone that’s come before us. Intertwining it with the ego is a modern concept. The music industry has been defined by lawyers, and that strangles creativity.”
“I think everything about copyright is problematic,” Grimes continued. “There’s too much top down control. In the early days of TikTok there was a lot of weird music going viral, but now the gatekeeping stranglehold means less interesting stuff coming out.”
Grimes’ speech followed on from a recent Twitter thread in which the former Crack Magazine cover star invited artists to use AI generated vocals of her voice. Elaborating on this further at IMS, Grimes said, “Why shouldn’t people be able to use my voice? Something cool and beautiful might come from it. I think this might be one of the coolest times to be an artist ever. We’re just at the start of the internet. I always say to my manager: ‘I want to make hieroglyphics. I don’t care if people remember my name, but I want to be able to meaningfully contribute to this culture at a time of great change’”.
She also touched on the issue of using AI to generate music from artists who have died. “If I was dead I’d really like people to do it. But I’m not sure everyone would agree. I feel like maybe Prince would’ve been up for it. If it was one of his friends doing it maybe. It’s a tricky one.”
Following the keynote speech – which was moderated by Radio 1 broadcaster and DJ Jaguar – Grimes launched an AI service for people to use her vocals called GrimesA1-1 Voiceprint. Sharing the service to Twitter, Grimes wrote that creators can earn royalties and have their music distributed via the platform. She also said that she’ll be “releasing real Grimes music in the coming weeks and months too”.
