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Frank Ocean’s Surprising ‘New Look’ Has Everyone Making The Same Joke About A Certain Religious Figure

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Frank Ocean
Getty Image/Ralph Ordaz

Despite Frank Ocean being one of the world’s biggest superstars, capable of headlining Coachella, no one ever seems to know exactly what he’s up to. That is, of course, by design; the famously reclusive singer-songwriter flies way below the radar, eschewing the trappings of fame for a much more humble — and mysterious — existence.

So, anytime he surfaces, there’s usually a flurry of interest. Fans can’t get enough of wondering whether he’ll release new work, announce a tour, an odd sex toy, or in this case, debut a new look. The avant-garde performer born Christopher Edwin Breaux popped back up recently with a new selfie, revealing that in his absence from the spotlight, he’s not only grown a full beard but also some truly luxurious, shoulder-length locks.

Of course, this new appearance gives him a very strong resemblance to a certain religious figure that many a Black grandma had a painting of hanging on the wall, and fans just couldn’t stop making exactly that joke in response.

Of course, there were some other creative entries to the joke canon. One fan pointed out Frank’s aesthetic similarity to a character in one of hip-hop’s cinematic staples, while others lamented their own resemblance to the newly hirsute singer.

The winner is, of course, professional comic Zack Fox, who gave his take on Instagram:

zack fox frank ocean deepfake response
Instagram

However, all this might be moot; the image appears to be yet another example of the misleading realism of AI and deepfake technology. It’s getting truly scary out here! Whatever the real Frank Ocean is doing, let’s all hope this doesn’t freak him out and send him even further underground, or we might never get new music from him again.

Spotify Unveiled A Ton Of Upcoming Changes, Including A New AI DJ, Autoplay For Podcasts, And Much More

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Today, Spotify held their Spotify Stream On conference, which found them announcing a ton of upcoming changes to the app — some of which might surprise users.

“This marks the biggest change Spotify has undergone since we introduced mobile 10 years ago,” Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said, per The Hollywood Reporter. “This evolution is really about bringing Spotify to life.”

Chlöe Bailey, who appeared at the press event, revealed the new “Spotify Clips” service, which allows musicians to add 30-second videos to their profiles. “You can talk about an unreleased song, promote a new album, share the stories behind a song, or really anything you can come up with,” she said.

The streaming service has announced that they will now be adding autoplay for podcasts, which means that another episode will start playing automatically after the current one ends. The recommendations will also fit the user’s personalized interests. This continues a push for their podcasting and video section, as they are allowing those around the world to apply to use Spotify Labs for recording episodes and use Patreon as a payment partnership.

Spotify will also bring out “Previews,” which gives users audio and visual previews when they scroll down.

Some other new changes include the ability to use hashtags to search for music, a few of which reportedly are “#pop, #R&B, and #confident.” Users can view touring schedules for artists on the app under a new “Live Events” section.

Finally, they’re rolling out a new AI DJ that “will deliver a curated lineup of music alongside commentary around the tracks and artists we think you’ll like in a stunningly realistic voice,” according to the company’s website.

Even Spotify Is Getting In On The AI Trend With Its New Virtual DJ

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It seems that everyone is getting into the AI game these days (for better or for worse) and of course, that includes digital streaming platforms. Today, Spotify unveiled its own new AI feature, DJ, which according to Spotify’s press release, sounds a lot like the song radio function already on the platform.

DJ, using OpenAI technology, will look at the music you’ve played, and create what amounts to a virtual DJ set — complete with a realistic AI DJ voice. The voice is modeled by Spotify Head of Cultural Partnerships Xavier “X” Jernigan, but the DJ voice will come up with its dialogue in real-time using AI voice generator Sonatic.

According to Spotify, this is how premium users in the US and Canada can access the new function:

1. Head to your Music Feed on Home in the Spotify mobile app on your iOS or Android device.
2. Tap Play on the DJ card.
3. Let Spotify do the rest! The DJ will serve a lineup of music alongside short commentary on the songs and artists, picked just for you.
4. Not feeling the vibe? Just hit the DJ button at the bottom right of the screen to be taken to a different genre, artist, or mood.

Spotify says that more voices and features will round out in the future. As long as they stay far away from the sort of racial caricature symbolized by AI rapper FN Meka, this one seems like a win, a potentially useful form of music discovery that can add the context that can take a song from “this is cool” to “this is my new favorite song, album, and artist.”

Check out Spotify’s DJ trailer above.

Is Google’s Music AI Open To The Public?

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Just when you think technology can’t be more advanced, something new pops up. Before, it was NFTs, and now, it’s AI. Artificial Intelligence, or AI, has slowly seeped its way into every facet of our lives, so it’s no surprise music would be next. Google, one of the world’s leading tech giants, announced it had developed a music-making robot that will be able to create “original” audio from texts and prompts.

The Verge reports that Google researchers have created an AI that can “generate minutes-long musical pieces from text prompts, and can even transform a whistled or hummed melody into other instruments.” The model system is called MusicLM.

MusicLM is even said to be able to imitate human vocals, despite having a few kinks, including a grainy or staticky sound.

Currently, there is no way for users to play around with this on their own, but Google has uploaded several 30-second snippets of songs that have been created through this process. The songs were crafted using ” paragraph-long descriptions that prescribe a genre, vibe, and even specific instruments.” Longer pieces could even be generated by one or two-word phrases like “melodic techno” and “futuristic club.”

There is even a “story mode” where the AI model is given a script to modify between prompts.

It has not been announced when the technology will be available for public use, but it will presumably be in the near future.

Fans Are Using AI To Make Drake Rap About Stolen Wallets And Pirate Turtles

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drake ai
Getty Image/Ralph Ordaz

Remember a few years ago, when NFTs were all the rage?

Yeah, I don’t know why I brought that up. Anyway, everybody seems to be really into “AI” right now — or at least, algorithms that imitate artificial intelligence (ChatGPT ain’t passing a Turing test anytime soon) — and that’s led to some quirky, fun apps like the aforementioned ChatGPT and a new Drake song generator.

Drayk.it lets users type in a song concept — or randomly generate one — and out pops a reasonable facsimile of a one-minute Drake song, which is performed by a Drake bot.

Obviously, there’s a lot of fun to be had with getting Drake to sing about something other than his broken heart, and fans are stretching that idea to its absolute limits. Suggestions have so far included a lost wallet (A Tribe Called Quest did it first/better), Drake’s Shabbos reading list, and a song about a turtle pirate(???).

And sure, this is all in good fun, but whenever Drake gets around to pulling a Rick Astley and suing the pants off the app’s creators, this sort of thing will probably see a lot of legal scrutiny within the next few years. This is kind of a far cry from that Views cover art generator. This is actual likeness and art, which will need to be protected.

The genie’s out of the bottle now, and I can think of at least three ways this could be used for nefarious ends, and while Drake isn’t much of a sympathetic figure, there are hundreds of other recording artists out there who could be harmed by this. For now, we’ll enjoy making Drake rap about Warrior Nun or whatever, but the dominoes are already falling.