Capitol Records Severs Ties With FN Meka, an AI-Generated ‘Virtual Rapper,’ Over Stereotypes, Lack of Black Creative Involvement

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The lineup for the 2023 Stagecoach Festival includes one very familiar veteran of the festivities, Luke Bryan, who will be making his fourth headlining appearance in the California desert, along with two stars who have made regular appearances at the festival but have moved up into headliner slots for the first time, Kane Brown and Chris Stapleton. Goldenvoice announced the performers and dates for the ’23 gathering Monday morning, just a little more than four months after the 2022 festival took place. The next fest will take place April 28 – 30, 2023, with passes going on sale Friday at 10 a.m. PT. Prices for passes range from $389 for advance general admission to $1,499 for the GA standing pit and $1,999 for prime reserved seating.

Good Morning Britain viewers have shared a message with ITV after Kate Garraway hosted its first Sunday episode. The 55-year-old presenter took to the helm of the ITV news programme after it aired over the weekend following the death of the Queen.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Here’s an awards trajectory you don’t see too often, at least in country music: Lainey Wilson has never even been nominated for the CMA Awards before, but as of Wednesday morning, she’s officially the leading nominee for 2022. Wilson came out ahead with six nominations when the Country Music Association announced the finalists Wednesday morning for its 56th annual awards show. Close behind with five nominations each was a quartet of contenders: Ashley McBryde, Carly Pearce, Chris Stapleton and songwriter/producer Shane McAnally. Racking up a four-pack of nods were Cody Johnson and writer-producer Josh Osbourne. Miranda Lambert, Carrie Underwood, Luke Combs, Hardy and Midland all came up as triple-nominees.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic When Mary McCartney was approached by producer John Battsek (“Searching for Sugar Man,” “One Day in September”) to make a film about the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London, she didn’t immediately leap at the chance, the way almost any other photographer interested in making the leap into documentary filmmaking might have. It’s not difficult to guess at the reason she might have balked at, and then succumbed to, the idea of making “If These Walls Could Sing,” which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival over the weekend and has been picked up for airing on Disney+. “I think because of my surname, I get a little bit oversensitive,” says the daughter of Paul McCartney, sitting at a sidewalk-adjacent table in Telluride. “I used to sort of shy away from anything to do with my family, wanting with my photography to be making a name for myself in my own area. I mean, I’ve always been really proud of my family, but then recently I’ve realized (I should) actually not shy away from it because I feel like I’m being judged. …. Before, I was like, my family’s my family and my career’s my career, and now I’m at the point where I’m confident enough to merge the two.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Nick Lowe and Shakespeare were wrong, about having to be cruel to be kind. A tour stop Tuesday in Anaheim that had Lowe supporting headliner Elvis Costello as an opening act before eventually joining him for three climactic duets was kindly and 100% cruelty-free, reuniting the two former studio workmates in a fashion that made it seem as if no 40-year intervals had passed at all, except for the incidental actually-getting-better factors. (You’re not getting older, you’re getting Basher, etc.) Not that the show at the City National Grove of Anaheim — one of several SoCal appearances this week by Costello, with and without Lowe in tow — needed its crowning dream-teaminess to come up aces. Costello’s current sets with the Imposters represent the best example rock ‘n’ roll has at the moment of a vast catalog of classic material played with improvisational vigor by one of the great bands the medium has known, augmented by fresh material that can stand proudly alongside the vintage. “Indoor Fireworks” was one of the quieter songs performed Tuesday, but it’s an apt description of what’s occurring on this can’t-miss outing (with apologies to the shed stops where the group pyro happens outdoors).

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Taylor Swift is not the only one re-recording fairly recent albums. Now Brandi Carlile has done it, although with very different reasons than the ones that prompted Swift to revisit her catalog. Carlile has gone back into the studio to redo last year’s “In These Silent Days” in its entirety, in a new, acoustic-focused version that’s been titled “In the Canyon Haze.” The newly recorded album will be out Sept. 28 and is preceded today by “You and Me on the Rock (In the Canyon Haze),” a remake that features her wife, Catherine Carlile, on harmony vocals. Carlile said that the project came about when she was looking at putting out a deluxe edition of “Silent Days” for the album’s upcoming anniversary, with bonus tracks, but settled on a way to make the entire album a bonus. The “canyon” part alludes to how the artist thinks the re-do aims for a vintage Laurel Canyon spirit in the reconfigured arrangements.

Manori Ravindran International Editor Variety can reveal a first look at Maggie Smith and Laura Linney in the new drama “The Miracle Club,” which has wrapped production in Ireland and is now in post. The Dublin-shot film, which also stars Kathy Bates, centers on four Dublin women who come together on a pilgrimage to the holy city of Lourdes in France, where they discover the solidarity in their friendship and unveil their own personal miracles. Directed by Thaddeus O’Sullivan, “The Miracle Club” wrapped over the summer at Ardmore Studios in Dublin. The film also features Oscar nominee Stephen Rea (“The Crying Game,” “The Usual Suspects”) and up-and-coming star Agnes O’Casey (“Longbourn,” “Ridley Road”).

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic In a commentary published in the New York Times, Ashley Judd explains why she has filed a petition attempting to block the release of a report on the death of her mother, Naomi Judd — saying that “the horror” of the experience “will only worsen if the details surrounding her death are disclosed by the Tennessee law that generally allows police reports, including family interviews, from closed investigations to be made public.” In the essay, Judd reveals that her mother — who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at her home on April 30 — was still alive at the time police arrived, and contends that the barrage of questioning kept her from attending to her mother in some of her final moments. Most relevant to her objection to the report, though, is that she says family members revealed many personal things in the heat of interrogation without any thought as to how those details would forever become part of the public record.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Ingrid Andress is, by most measures, one of the most successful upstarts in mainstream country music over the past few years. After her debut album, “Lady Like,” came out in 2020, the Michigan native was nominated for best new artist at the Grammys as well as by the CMAs and ACMs. She’s a thoughtful live-wire and a media darling — those media including the press, late-night shows and, yes, country radio. Her first single, “More Hearts Than Mine,” was a double-platinum breakout hit that went top 5 at country radio, and a recent duet with Sam Hunt, “Wishful Drinking,” went top 10. She lands coveted tour spots, like her current one opening arena shows for Keith Urban all the way into November.

Management firm TaP Music last week confirmed that Larry Heard and Robert Owens – prominent players from the 1980s Chicago house scene and two thirds of Fingers Inc – have settled their legal dispute with Trax Records, the label they worked with in the mid-80s. The deal confirms that the duo own all the rights in the music they released with the label.Chicago-based Trax Records was co-founded in 1984 by Larry Sherman, who died in April 2020.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The 2022 MTV Video Music Awards were all about that bass Sunday night, and Flea didn’t have a lot to do with it. “VMAs, did you think I wasn’t gonna shake my ass tonight?” asked Anitta, very rhetorically, in the middle of her routine — and while most viewers were probably grateful for her concern for our concern, there was no need to fear she’d be the show’s outlier. Even the rock bands that were booked seemed to want to go into the show ass-forwards; hello, Måneskin cheek skin. (The cameras seemed to want to cut away from that singer’s pasty bottom; as you could almost hear the editors channeling Lisa Kudrow’s Aunt Sassy.) The only thing surprising in this regard, really, was the amount of robot ass in the show. Digital effects were sometimes used to bolster the supply of background dancers, or to provide giant setpieces, like the Attack of the 50-Foot Twerker that all but literally overshadowed J Balvin and Ryan Castro. When MTV is having to outsource butts to Silicon Valley, maybe it’s a sign we need to better allocate our natural supply.

CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week, including the claims of racism that saw ‘virtual’ rapper FN Meka dropped by Universal’s Capitol label, and the controversy surrounding the discovery that digital processes have been used by a supposedly analogue reissues label for more than a decade.SUBSCRIBE TO SETLISTListen to Setlist and sign up to receive new episodes for free automatically each week through any of these services…Acast | Amazon Music | Apple Podcasts | audioBoom | CastBox | Deezer | Google Podcasts | iHeart | Mixcloud | RSS | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneInSTORIES DISCUSSED THIS WEEK• Capitol drops ‘virtual’ rapper FN Meka after claims of racism• Human voice of ‘AI’ rapper FN Meka says he was cut out of the project• FN Meka spokesperson Anthony Martini quits project, admits there was less AI involved than claimed• Audiophile label sued over misleading statements regarding its mastering processALSO MENTIONED• Michael Jackson’s nephew says Harry Styles cannot be the ‘new king of pop’• Capitol Drops ‘Virtual Rapper’ FN Meka After Backlash Over Stereotypes (New York Times)• This robot rapper and 9m following on TikTok.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The Nashville Film Festival announced the full lineup Friday for a fall gathering of filmgoers in Music City that will begin with the Brandi Carlile-produced documentary “The Return of Tanya Tucker” as the gala opening on Sept. 29 and end with director Sacha Jenkins’ “Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues” for closing night on Oct. 5. The 53rd annual edition of the festival will take place both in-person and virtually, with a selection of more than 150 films that includes 38 full-length features, about 30 of which will be world, North American or U.S. premieres. Although the virtual component continues to be strong for the festival, its leaders note that of the 150 or so films in the festival, more than 50 will screen for audiences in Nashville venues, starting with the Tanya Tucker doc, which will be seen in the historic main auditorium of the city’s beloved Belcourt Theater, one of the original homes of the Grand Ole Opry. Other locations include the Franklin Theater in the nearby city of that name, and the TPAC Andrew Johnson Theater in downtown Nashville.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Stepping into Muse frontman Matt Bellamy’s Los Angeles studio is immediately surreal, on a couple of different fronts. For one thing, there’s the fact that it’s in an unmarked former storefront on a heavily trafficked urban street, so on the other side of the one-way glass, pedestrians are constantly passing by, unaware that they’re about two yards away from a rock star coming up with new songs to potentially join “Madness” or ”Uprising” guy as new KROQ-driven earworms in their heads. But apart from the street scene outside practically brushing up against his console, there’s something else about the place… “I don’t know if you remember the TV show ‘Twin Peaks,’” Bellamy inquires. As a matter of fact, yes. “Do you remember the Red Room? We’re sitting in it, basically,” he says, and sure enough, here in the front room of his studio, there is the black-and-white zig-zag flooring, the wrap-around red drapes, the minimalist lamp, the vaguely retro sitting chair…. Bellamy is a student of fantastical pop culture, so it makes sense that he’s surrounded by a Lynchian throwback space — even if the rock arias he creates here passionately reach for the sky, rather than feeling like they’re stuck in an interdimensional waiting room.

Angelique Jackson Antonio Fargas (“Starsky and Hutch”) and Stephanie Sigman (“Miss Bala”) have joined star Mike Colter in Tubi’s ‘Murder City,’ the second movie filmed under Village Roadshow Pictures’ Black Noir Cinema franchise, co-founded by NBA great Kevin Garnett. Last December, Variety exclusively announced “Murder City” as one of the first films slated for Black Noir Cinema, a lineup of genre movies developed and produced by Village Roadshow and Tubi, which will exclusively debut on the Fox-owned free streaming platform. Described as a “thrilling contemporary crime story,” the film follows Neil (Colter), a disgraced former cop, who after losing his job on the police force is forced to work with the city’s most notorious — and ruthless — kingpin, Ash (Sigman), to settle the debts of his estranged, deadbeat father, Graham (Fargas), and protect his wife and son.

AI star FN Meka and in turn has accused Capitol Records of ghosting him after he was promised equity in the label.Kyle The Hooligan has posted notes and videos in which he claims that the Universal-owned label have left him “high and dry” and shared information that purports to prove that he is the formerly unknown voice behind the viral robot rapper.FN Meka, made in collaboration with Factory New, was dropped by Capitol less than a fortnight after launching after its critics highlighted the way the project trivialised elements of Black culture and used them for shock value. The label alluded to this in a formal apology shared online earlier this week by The New York Times’ Joe Coscarelli.Meka was marketed as the “world’s first” AI rapper to sign to a major label, with Ryan Ruden, Capitol Music Group’s executive vice president of experiential marketing and business development, saying that the project “meets at the intersection of music, technology and gaming culture” and “is just a preview of what’s to come”.Capitol released its first FN Meka single, ‘Florida Water’, on August 12, which featured guest vocals from real life rapper Gunna and ancillary involvement from gaming streamer Clix.But controversy followed when Meka, who’d garnered more than 10million TikTok followers, was seen to use the N word and appeared to make light of police brutality.

WHITE MUSIC EXECS LEFT IN A ROOM, UNSUPERVISED:let's create an artificial rapper who says the n word & simulates our deepest fetishes & fantasies about blackness & materialism & he will never get arrested unless we want him to which is a fun storyline let's try that pic.twitter.com/9nDdqXdpbw“We find fault in the lack of awareness in how offensive this caricature is,” music non-profit Industry Blackout wrote on Tuesday. “It is a direct insult to the black community and our culture.

Less than two weeks after signing ‘virtual’ rapper FN Meka, Universal’s Capitol Records has announced that it is ending its partnership with the project due to accusations of racism.“[Capitol] has severed ties with the FN Meka project, effective immediately”, the company said in a statement. “We offer our deepest apologies to the black community for our insensitivity in signing this project without asking enough questions about equity and the creative process behind it.

The Hollywood Reporter. “We offer our deepest apologies to the Black community for our insensitivity in signing this project without asking enough questions about equity and the creative process behind it.”The news comes just hours after activist group Industry Blackout, which represents a unified body of Black industry members, called out Capitol Records on social media for partnering with the AI known as FN Meka, noting that the project “amalgamation of gross stereotypes [and] appropriative mannerisms that derive from Black artists, complete with slurs infused in lyrics.”Industry Blackout also described the partnership as a “direct insult to the Black community and our culture” that is “unacceptable” and “will not be tolerated.”Created by Anthony Martini and Brandon Le, FN Meka’s partnership with Capitol Records represented the studio’s first major deal with a virtual artist. FN Meka released the single “Florida Water,” which featured Gunna and gaming streamer Clix.The group demanded that the partnership be terminated, a public apology be issued and that FN Meka be removed from all platforms.

announced the “signing” of FN Meka – a virtual “robot rapper” launched by creative start-up Factory New – the Universal-owned label has shared a statement confirming it has “severed ties” with the project.Capitol Music Group announced their partnership with Factory New on August 12, with Ryan Ruden – the company’s executive vice president of experiential marketing and business development – saying the FN Meka project “meets at the intersection of music, technology and gaming culture” and “is just a preview of what’s to come”.The same day, Capitol released its first FN Meka single, ‘Florida Water’, which featured guest vocals from (real life) rapper Gunna and ancillary involvement from gaming streamer Clix. Though vocals credited to FN Meka were performed by a real human being (the identity of whom is currently unknown), the lyrics were reportedly generated by an AI-powered algorithm.Shortly after the song was released and the “signing” made public, Capitol faced backlash over its involvement with the project.