Accused of racism, a black virtual rapper fired by his record company

A black robot rapper, FN Meka, star of TikTok created thanks to artificial intelligence, was fired by the record label Capitol Records after being accused of conveying racist stereotypes about black people. It was the group of American activists Industry Blackout who, after a campaign on social networks, wrote Tuesday to Capitol Records, a subsidiary of Universal Music, to denounce FN Meka, “a direct insult to the black community and to (its) culture”.

Having “signed” a contract ten days ago, the virtual rapper, creation of artificial intelligence, has not been part of the record company since Wednesday, which has “severed its ties with the FN Meka project, with immediate effect”according to a press release from the group Capitol Music. “We offer our deepest apologies to the black community for our insensitivity in having signed on to this project without questioning ourselves sufficiently about its fairness and creativity”acknowledged the record company in a press release obtained by AFP.

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Industry Blackout had denounced “an amalgamation of crude stereotypes, appropriations (cultural) of black artists and insults contained in the lyrics”. FN Meka is notably accused of having used the famous “N-word” in English, a word that has become unpronounceable in the United States because of the character deemed racist, insulting and offensive towards black people. On social networks, a digital image also shows the robot – a sort of black cyborg with a tattooed face and a half-shaved head – being bludgeoned to the ground by the avatar of a white American police officer.

Technically, the robot rapper does not sing – it is a real anonymous black artist who does – but the music is generated by artificial intelligence. FN Meka, however, maintains its TikTok account with more than 10 million subscribers and more than a billion views for its videos.