Boy George launches new AI initiative for artists
Boy George has announced a new AI initiative, called Artists Included, which he hopes will help musicians regain their music.
The Culture Club frontman has formed the new business with his longtime manager, Paul Kemsley, which will allow artists to use AI technology to re-record their old songs for which they don’t own the masters.
On June 16th, Artists Included shared their first release, which is a new version of the Culture Club classic ‘Karma Chameleon’, which has used technology to recreate Boy George’s 22-year-old voice that originally sang on the track in 1963.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, George said of the venture, “It’s hard to get excited about something that you don’t control. This gives me an opportunity, not just me, but other artists, to have a different relationship with those songs.”
Kemsley also cited a recent lucrative anniversary campaign revolving around ‘Karma Chameleon’, which allegedly didn’t see George get paid, as the motivation for the venture, sharing, “Four million changed hands. George didn’t get anything at all.”
For the new version, George recorded his vocals, which were then processed by an AI model that had been trained by old archival recordings of his voice.
He said of the finished product, “When I heard it, I was absolutely gobsmacked. It sounds like another take from that original session.”
George also proudly added, “It has the sound of me at 22 years old with all the experience of everything that I’ve learned.”
Unsurprisingly, considering the creation of this new business, George is not a critic of AI, stating he is “not frightened of it”. Nevertheless, he stressed, “You still need imagination. You still need an idea. You still need a desired outcome.”
The venture comes after he previously admitted to using AI to assist with his songwriting earlier this year while appearing on Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place podcast, noting that the “practice has really helped me as a lyricist.”
He added, “I have fantastic conversations with ChatGPT, and I’ll say, ‘Oh, that’s crap’. That’s not what I would say,” but did claim that you “can train” the technology as a creative collaborator.
On the other hand, Alice Cooper recently outlined why he believes AI will never replicate human artists, stating it “has no emotion, it has no heart, it has no feel, has no soul to it, and that’s where it dies right there.”
In December, Boy George will return to the road with Culture Club for a UK arena tour, beginning in Bournemouth on December 7th and wrapping up at the O2 Arena in London on December 19th.
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