The man who says he voiced controversial virtual AI rapper FN Meka has come forward and is claiming he was "ghosted" by the creators of the "rapper" when the project got off the ground and was never compensated.
On Tuesday (Aug. 23), rapper Kyle The Hooligan came forward to tell his side of the FN Meka saga on Instagram. In the video, he claimed he collaborated with the creators of the virtual rapper but has yet to get any money for his services.
"I know y'all done heard about this FN Meka stuff. People been DMing me," Kyle starts in the video. "I been trying to keep it quiet because I was gonna really wait ’til this shit blew up for real and went after them. Basically, it's like, they came to me with this AI shit and was like, 'Would I like to be the voice of it?' I thought it was gonna some collaboration. They promised me equity in the company, percentages, all this stuff. "So I'm thinking, OK, this about to be some collab, something different for me, so where I can do my music and be on some AI stuff with this FN Meka character."
Kyle claims nothing he was promised came to fruition.
"So, everything is going good," continued. "Next thing I know, niggas just ghosted me. Used my voice, used my sound, used the culture and just literally just left me high and dry. I aint get a dime off of nothing. And they got record deals, all this stuff. I wasn't involved with no meetings or none of that, which is fucked up. So, honestly, I'm glad they ass got canceled. That's karma for they ass."
He captioned the video, "Used me for my voice my likeness and the culture got 10million TikTok followers and a Big record deal off what I created then ghosted me…"
In a follow-up post, Kyle provided evidence that he voiced the virtual rhymer by playing raw files from FN Meka's 2019 song "Moonwalkin'" and the 2020 track "Internet."
"Just to show y'all I'm not cap," he added.
XXL has reached out to FN Meka co-creator Anthony Martini for comment.
Most people had never heard of FN Meka until news broke that the AI-powered rapper had signed a major label deal with Capitol Records last week. FN Meka is the creation of Anthony Martini and Brandon Le, cofounders of Factory New, a virtual record label. FN Meka's voice is based off a real human, according to its creators, but everything else about the rapper's rhymes are based off artificial intelligence technology.
Once the cat was out of the bag, the project came under backlash due to FN Meka's use of the N-word and perpetuation of stereotypes on social media. Following public outcry and pressure from online Black advocacy group Industry Blackout, Capitol severed ties with the virtual rhymer.
"CMG has severed ties with the FN Meka project, effectively immediately," the imprint said in a statement announcing the split. "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. We thank those who have reached out to us with constructive feedback in the past couple of days—your input was invaluable as we came to the decision to end our associate with the project."
FN Meka has over 10 million followers on TikTok.