Artificial intelligence has delivered a host of reworked classics as of late. In late March, it produced the late Notorious B.I.G. rapping over Nas‘ 1994 masterpiece ‘N.Y. State of Mind’, which has since gone viral due to the Ready to Die rapper seamlessly replicating Nas’ iconic flow.
The song’s original version arrived on Nas’ influential debut album, Illmatic. DJ Premier produced the track, sampling Joe Chambers’ ‘Mind Rain’ and Donald Byrd’s ‘Flight Time’. Famously, he also scratched up vocal samples from Eric B. & Rakim’s ‘Mahogany’.
The new AI Biggie-featuring version of ‘N.Y. State of Mind’ has evoked mixed reactions on social media. Cypress Hill’s DJ Muggs praised it, writing on Instagram: “Say what the fuck you like but it’s only gonna get better an better”.
Other remixes and faux songs by Drake, Michael Jackson, and The Weeknd have also recently made it online. In April, Universal Music Group took down a fake collaboration of Drake and The Weeknd that went viral, labelled ‘Heart on my Sleeve’. They argued that they have “a moral and commercial responsibility to our artists to work to prevent the unauthorized use of their music and to stop platforms from ingesting content that violates the rights of artists and other creators.”
Listen to the track below.