Montana has become the first state in America to ban TikTok. In a Senate Bill signed on Wednesday, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte stated his aim is to protect the private information of the residents of his state.
According to NPR, Senate Bill 419 highlights the Chinese government as a reason for the ban, citing the nation as a potential threat.
“The Chinese Communist Party using TikTok to spy on Americans, violate their privacy, and collect their personal, private, and sensitive information is well-documented,” Gov. Gianforte said.
The owner of TikTok, tech giant ByteDance, denied sharing information. However, government officials highlight the records of consumers are available as the nation’s government allows for storing public records.
The ban will take effect on Jan. 1, 2024, but it is currently unclear on how it will be enforced, and is also facing opposition that the bill is unconstitutional.
Cardi B is helping Beats usher in a new era for their popular studio buds line. In a new spot, using her banger “Up,” Cardi shows the capabilities of the upgraded product line, Studio Buds+. In the spot, Cardi shows off how a clearer call function allows for easier communication, a powerful sound exemplified by her music, and noise-canceling to box out all the hater and extra noise around you.
Beats Studio Buds +, an amazing upgrade to the Studio Buds series that offers balanced sound and improved capabilities for iOS and Android users, has just been announced by Beats. Studio Buds Plus, which is now available in a stunning transparent design, significantly improves Active Noise.
ANC, Transparency, call quality, and battery life all work together to provide a superb true wireless experience. For $169.99 (US), Beats Studio Buds Plus are now available for purchase in three gorgeous colors: Black / Gold, Ivory, and Transparent.
“As our fastest-selling product ever since its launch, Beats Studio Buds are beloved earphones for so many people around the world and we’re thrilled to be taking them to the next level,” said Oliver Schusser, Vice President of Beats and Apple Music. “With beautiful new colors to choose from and vast improvements to Active Noise Cancellation, Transparency, call performance and battery life, Beats Studio Buds + deliver an unmatched combination of fashion and function for both iOS and Android consumers.”
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20230426 Powers Beats 607 DogWalking 1197 4×5
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20230427 Powers Beats 607 Basketball 6347 4×5
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20230427 Powers Beats 607 Basketball 6621 4×5
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20230427 Powers Beats 607 Metro 4122 9×16
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20230427 Powers Beats 607 Metro 4241 9×16
For a more comfortable all-day fit, three innovative acoustic vents enhance audio precision and gently release pressure. Additionally, Studio Buds + provide a secure fit for your earbuds while also forming a comfortable acoustic seal for the greatest listening experience with four ear tip options (XS, S, M, & L) to fit a wider range of ears.
Beats’ unique acoustic platform has an elegant, portable design and delivers strong, balanced sound. Each bud has a unique two-layer transducer that flexes to produce better bass and extremely low distortion. So wherever you go, Studio Buds + produce rich, immersive sound whether you’re taking calls or listening to music.
Users of Apple Music may experience genuine multidimensional sound and clarity by using Studio Buds Plus, which automatically plays spatial audio for available tracks mixed in Dolby Atmos.3 It feels like there are 64 speakers playing at once.
Beats Studio Buds + is available to order starting today for $169.99 (US) from apple.com in the US, Canada and China, with shipping beginning tomorrow
Elon Musk’s run as CEO of Twitter has come to a close. Hitting the app, Musk announced a new CEO will take over, and she will start in about six weeks.
“Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter,” he tweeted. “She will be starting in ~6 weeks! My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.”
Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter. She will be starting in ~6 weeks!
My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.
The new hire follows Musk’s December 2022 poll asking if he should step down. A 57% vote, ruled yes, evoking the response, “I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.”
I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.
Artificial intelligence has progressed rapidly in recent times and has therefore increasingly found its way into our everyday lives. Meek Mill had an encounter with AI recently and it left him scratching his head.
Late last night/early this morning (May 10), he tweeted, “Ai wrote a rap about my dad and this what he said WTF.”
The tweet included a video of an apparently AI-generated rap song, called “Back From The Grave” and credited to Big Robbie; Meek’s father, Robert Parker, died from a gunshot wound when Meek was a child, which Meek rapped about on “Traumatized.”
The lyrics of the AI song go, “I died in a shootout, just tryin’ to feed my fam / But death couldn’t stop me, I’m back in the lab / My son Meek Mill, he’s the light of my life / Gotta watch over him, I’m back from the afterlife / I’m Big Robbie and I’m back with a plan / I’m comin’ back to life to see my fam / My soul’s come alive, I’m gonna make it right / Back from the grave, I’m gonna fight the fight.”
Check out the AI track above.
Meek Mill is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
will.i.am has a vision for the future of creative collaboration. As a rapper, producer, tech mogul, and philanthropist, working with other creators has always been his source of inspiration — now he’s delivering a tool to help fuel the next wave of creative innovation. This past weekend in Miami — on the heels of premiering “The Formula” with Lil Wayne as F1’s new theme song during Miami race weekend — Will and his team took over Soho House’s Miami Pool House to debut FYI, “the world’s first AI Web 3.0 messenger geared towards creative collaboration.” The first-look event featured panel conversations, product demos, and an all-around vibe of celebrating creativity, collaboration, and peering into the future — hallmarks of will.i.am himself.
The key differentiator for FYI — outside of being co-founded and developed by a global music icon — is putting all the tools for creative collaboration in one place and then further fueling efficiencies by utilizing AI to streamline workflow and make the most of everyone’s time and creative energy. But this isn’t a case of “humans vs. machines,” instead will.i.am wants to empower creatives to reach their full potential.
“My vision for FYI is to help creatives organize, collaborate, and communicate in one place,” he says, “rather than have all their communications and digital assets spread across five different products. Starting there will ease how creatives collaborate, network, and strategize. Having AI baked in the core of the product will give them the ability to supercharge their creativity and their strategizing with AI and their team flow.”
“Me and my crew pointed out a futurism,” he says. “In the future, back then, we said this little box — this AI box — is going to sing, produce, and do everything. You can type in the lyrics, but this machine right here is going to do it all. We said that in a video back in 2010.”
“And the reason I had a glimpse of that futurism is because of the work I was doing with one of the world’s greatest — Professor Patrick Winston, who taught at MIT in the AI lab. He’s since then passed away but he was an amazing force in the AI field. He inspired me to even go down this path of AI. I’ve been working in and around AI since 2009.”
FYI’s initial AI implementation is aimed at practical usability — like asking FYI to summarize a long project thread the user has spent time away from for that user personally, catching them up on the conversation and their place in it without having to scroll and decipher which parts are meaningful to them and where they owe responses.
“We’re starting with collaboration, strategizing, and communication. Because right now the creatives — me being the creative — I needed that solved. Conversations and your intellectual property, the things you care so much about and work for, the conversations around that stuff, are all over the place.”
AJ Woomer / FYI / Soho House
The FYI launch wasn’t just intellectual conversation and product specifics. It was also a party, complete with cocktails, laughter, an impeccable playlist, and Miami’s most influential creatives hanging poolside, taking it all in — truly a summation of will.i.am’s ethos and ability to combine fun with important critical thinking and a vision of the future. Special guests for the panels included Chris Lyons (President Web3 Media, a16z), Julie Pilat (Chief Growth Officer, FYI), Trevor McFedries (DJ, Artist, and Technologist), Jesse Kirshbaum (CEO, NUE Agency), and Jesus Mantas (Global Managing Partner, IBM), discussing everything from how FYI works to their own experiences in business, technology, music, and creative endeavors.
AI-Powered Idea Generation: FYI’s AI-powered system offers users creative suggestions and intelligent insights to help generate new ideas and explore new directions.
Centralized File Management: FYI offers users an all-in-one platform to store, organize, and access files quickly and easily, eliminating the need for multiple tools and systems.
Interactive Workspaces: The platform provides interactive layouts that allow users to present their work to clients, stakeholders, or team members, using both predefined and customized layouts.
Advanced Communication: FYI’s integrated voice and video calling platform, with its AI assistant and built-in transcription service, ensures reliable and efficient communication across teams.
Enhanced Security: FYI employs top-of-the-range encryption and security measures, allowing users to protect intellectual property and keep sensitive information confidential.
User-Friendly Interface: FYI’s sleek and intuitive interface is easy to use and customize, helping users focus on work and increasing productivity.
Collaborative Features: FYI’s platform features comprehensive collaboration tools like team assignments, task management, progress reporting, and milestone tracking. The platform ensures all critical team activity happens in a secure, centralized workspace for increased productivity, efficiency, and transparency.
Here’s a glimpse into the FYI launch in Miami during race weekend…
Snoop Dogg isn’t one to hold his tongue about hot-button topics. Since the explosion of AI and AI-generated content, it’s brought many concerns. Celebrities like Snoop have aired many concerns regarding viral AI-generated songs. Creators take artists’ voices and make tracks with the AI using their voices. Not only that, Snoop Dogg has been asked how he would feel about an AI-created track featuring his late friend Tupac and Biggie on a collab record. The Doggfather expressed his distaste for the endeavor. Moreover, he mentioned that he would rather have someone dig up old vocals or old verses to make a collaboration tape that way.
Recently, Snoop was a guest speaker at the 2023 Milken Institute Global Conference. Snoop Dogg spoke as a panelist next to CEO and Gamma founder, Larry Jackson. According to their website, the MIGC is a meeting of “the best minds in the world to tackle its most urgent challenges.” During the panel, Snoop went on a legendary rant regarding streaming. When the topic of streaming came up Snoop Dogg went off. “[Streaming is] exciting but streaming gotta get their s**t together,” Snoop began. The Death Row CEO continued, “Because I don’t understand how the f**k you get paid off that s**t.”
Snoop Dogg Wants Answers Now
Snoop Dogg went off the script and went in on streaming, AI and the writers strike pic.twitter.com/7vfl5Cpw1C
— Ahmed/The Ears/IG: BigBizTheGod (@big_business_) May 8, 2023
“Can somebody explain to me how you can get a billion streams and not get a billion dollars?” Snoop Dogg said. “That s**t don’t make sense to me,” he told the rest of the panel. Continuing his rant, he acknowledged that he was going off script but needed to get some things off his chest. Snoop mentioned the main gripe artists have been having is not seeing where the money is going when doing massive streaming numbers. “We do major numbers with streams but it don’t add up to the money. Where the f**k is the money?” Snoop asked. He continued his rant explaining that when he was coming up the numbers were based off of physical numbers.
Furthermore, Snoop mentioned that he like the ways of old when it came to crunching the numbers for artists. During the time of physical sales, artists knew exactly what they were getting (for the most part). When it came to sales percentages and what the artist gets from the split was laid out a lot easier than nowadays. What do you think of Snoop’s rant? Let us know in the comments section what you think.
Some celebrities, such as the Kardashian-Jenner sisters, are constantly being called out for Photoshop fails on Instagram. Others, like Julia Fox, are now using their platforms to discuss the dangers of altering images – especially when celebrities do it without offering any form of transparency. For the latest episode of her Forbidden Fruits podcast, the mother of one sat down with co-host Niki Takesh and Canadian artist Grimes to discuss the future of artificial intelligence, as well as some of the problems that can come with such advanced technology.
“A lot of celebrities Photoshop their images, so girls have unrealistic expectations, like, ‘Why can’t I look like that?’” the Uncut Gems actress pointed out. While normal people may envy their favourite stars, Fox cautioned listeners, “Boo, they don’t even look like that!” Grimes then chimed in with, “Yeah I feel like the idea that the average person is a 10 right now is very impressive if you’re a kid… It’s very concerning, it’s the most irresponsible thing tech is doing right now.” From Fox’s perspective, the new features constantly coming out are “demonic.”
Of course, the Italian-born starlet has previously been candid about undergoing plastic surgery herself. Seeing as she’s been transparent about having liposuction and Botox, fans have commended Fox for her realness. The problem seems to lie with those who aren’t straightforward about the work they’ve had done, or the alternations they make to their Instagram uploads, leaving followers to desperately desire to be or lust after something that isn’t even real. Following today’s episode, the “Player of Games” songstress will be back for another appearance later this month, likely to spill more tech tea.
Others who have already been interviewed by Julia Fox and Nikki Takesh include Emily Ratajkowski, Amber Rose, and Billy McFarland, who was the first official guest on the podcast’s second season back in March. Tap into part one of Grimes’ Forbidden Fruits interview exclusively on Spotify below. Afterward, tell us if you also have fears surrounding the future of AI in the comments.
Stream the Canadian’s Full Forbidden Fruits Interview
On September 18, 2020, Ava Max released her debut album, Heaven & Hell. Around that time, she celebrated the project’s release with a launch party. The event didn’t take place in some personally meaningful place like her hometown, or in a major city among the big lights. Instead, it happened on Roblox.
Some context: Earlier that year, the COVID-19 pandemic (you might be aware of it) forced the world to essentially shut down. This put the live entertainment industry on pause. Concerts and other in-person events were temporarily no more. Oof!
More context: Roblox, an online game creation platform, launched in 2006 and has grown substantially since then. It was reported in 2022 that Roblox had 57 million daily users (and that half of them were under 12 years old).
So, with both of those things in mind, Ava Max and her team decided to launch Heaven & Hell on Roblox. On September 25, the event began. After a countdown, a pre-recorded video message from Ava Max played, in which she spoke about the event, discussed her new album, and answered some questions. She then sang two songs before the video ended.
It was a neat experiment, as IRL events weren’t super possible at the time. So, Ava Max made the best of the situation and came through with something intriguing and different. Different, but also something of a return to normalcy: While the music industry was on hold, Ava Max pressed forward via the means available to her and delivered as close to a familiar experience as was possible.
It was also just the start.
A few weeks later, Lil Nas X got in on the Roblox fun. On November 14 and 15, the rapper put on quite the show. He opened with a performance of “Old Town Road” before a digital costume change and a rendition of “Rodeo” as bats flew above him. The environment allowed for some fantastical elements not possible in a real-life concert. As the Roblox Wiki describes, the show involved tornadoes, a shift to a futuristic setting, Lil Nas X levitating in front of the moon, and a black hole.
Those were the first two concerts experiences on Roblox, and from there, artists like Elton John, Mariah Carey, aespa, Soccer Mommy, Saweetie, and others hosted their own virtual events. Were they worse than in-person shows? Well, that’s hard to say.
Leaving the house, bringing your physical body to a different environment, and seeing artists in front of your face isn’t something that can be replicated on a phone, computer, or game console. It’s a special experience than can really only be felt that specific way. The thing is, though, that virtual concerts don’t need to be that. In terms of what an in-person show offers, virtual shows can’t do it. They just can’t. In other ways, however, they can present much more.
Stage design for major tours can be incredible, but Lil Nas X isn’t getting functional tornadoes and black holes on a real-life stage. Roblox has long been an open forum for imaginative expression for its users and the same has been true when it comes to virtual concerts. It’s an opportunity for artists to put on a concert in ways they could never pull off otherwise. Give the world’s most talented and creative entertainers a limitless environment and special moments are bound to result.
Furthermore, sometimes, committing a few hours to going downtown, finding parking, getting to the venue, watching a concert, and making your way home is a lot. Nights when that seems overwhelming are the perfect occasion to just open an app on your phone/computer and catch some more convenient live entertainment, to still get the feeling that you’re watching something grand unfold in the moment.
Worth noting is that as novel as this whole thing may seem, a Roblox virtual concert isn’t a completely new idea (and not just because Fortnite did it before them, like with the Marshmello event in February 2019). Roblox events represent what the live entertainment business has long been about: meeting people where they are.
Really, performers have been bringing their shows to the people for a long as it’s been possible: Shortly after the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, circuses started traveling to the western half of the US. People were in their hometowns and most of them presumably didn’t have the means for significant travel (especially for leisure), so the entertainers went to them.
From there, music tours eventually became a major business, and some performers went beyond even just showing up in people’s cities. In the ’90s and ’00s, music lovers young and old spent a lot of time at the then-thriving malls. So, artists like Britney Spears and Avril Lavigne got set up between Claire’s and the food court to get a performance in. That’s where the people were, so that’s where the artists were.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought more popularity to remote-friendly practices like working from home and consuming the majority of entertainment online. Folks were in their rooms and on the internet, so that’s where the artists went.
Again, Roblox isn’t the first video game platform to host a virtual concert: Shout out to Duran Duran for performing a Second Life show in 2006. Roblox was, though, a leader in bringing them to the mainstream at the perfect time. It’s where the people were, and it’s where the artists could be whatever they wanted to be.
In 2023, the live entertainment industry is at the point where concert tours have long been back in full swing. This doesn’t mean virtual events should go back and hide in their hole of obscurity, though. Video games and other online products are as popular as they’ve ever been, and musicians are more open-minded and creatively free than ever before when it comes to self-promotional strategies.
So yes, for most artists, in-person events will return to their spot as the live entertainment priority. There’s no reason why virtual concerts can’t be a piece of the puzzle, though. While they had to fill in as the main feature for a little bit, really, they’re a different side of the same coin, one that offers its own unique value. It’s all just meeting people where they are, and as where they are changes, artists, as they always have, adapt and push the industry in exciting new directions.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Get ready for more AI. TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is currently developing an AI program whose purpose is to “significantly lower the music creation barrier.”
MBW scooped two new positions added to the ByteDance site that is seeking a Product Manager to serve the company in “working on an AI-powered tool that provides intelligent music creation and audio editing capabilities.”
In speaking on the mission for the program, ByteDance has the vision to “to significantly lower the music creation barrier and inspire musical creativity and expression, further enriching the music content.”
The listing also encourages knowledge of algorithms, intelligence creation, and hopefully a merger of music. You can learn more about ByteDance’s plans here.
(@big_business_) 
