In Hip Hop, the phrase ‘fake it till you make it’ has been around for a long time. It has always been used as motivation for people to keep pushing themselves and thinking they are good even if they haven’t quite gotten to the top yet. Nowadays, fake it till you make it could mean something totally different as AI technology is slowly encroaching on normal life.

FN Meka is the latest hotshot on the Hip Hop scene. He’s a rapper with green braids and tats on the face, he rolls around in a gold-plated Rolls Royce, protects himself with Gucci Uzis, and recently learned how to pull his Lambo-copter up to a McDonald’s drive-thru. While he does sound a little over the top, Hip Hop fans wouldn’t be surprised if he was a homie of Tekashi69. Thing is, he’s an AI completely made up from Vydia, a new type of management company.

Think about this - stories sell artists. Would 50 Cent be as popular if he hadn’t gotten shot nine times? Would Britney Spears have been the queen of the world at some point if she wasn’t an innocent teen? Now combine that with the marketing of Gorillaz. Add in the technology of Marshmello and here we are in 2021 with FN Meka.

Record companies have always pushed the idea that they are creating superstars. Now, think how much saliva is dripping from their lips when they think about not even having to deal with a person. Instead, they can just build the coolest avatar with all the highest selling data points in modern music and - abracadabra - all the views, sales, and media but without all the baggage of an actual person.

FN Meka just sold a Lambo Port-a-Potty NFT complete with a scissor door for thousands of dollars. He’s amassed nine million followers on Tik Tok and has brands dying to work with him. He’s put out three songs and they really don’t sound that much different than what's on the radio at the moment.

Before ‘fake it till you make it’ meant for artists to keep grinding. Now, it may mean that we really don’t need reality in Hip Hop anymore.