I saw your profile ask, do you like hip hop, and thought, why yes I do. So I listened to some of your music and it’s – I think this is how the cool kids would put it – dope af – although I could be confusing my generational lingo and even be a generation behind. Loved the music and the lyrics with the images and the text showing up on the screen. And I mean this as a compliment: it’s like if Charles Bukowski rapped and edited videos.

I suppose this is why I’m not too worried about AI art. It won’t replace what humans make. I’ll still want to listen, watch, or read what humans distinctly produce because I turn to art to understand the human condition.

Hip hop was ruined some time ago. There are some great lyricists, even popular ones, but it’s almost all boilerplate and the videos look the same. Half the lyrics are product placement. I don’t begrudge the artists. (Except Kanye. The turncoat. Can’t believe it would be he who held the nail steady while Rowling and Rowan Atkinson hammered shut the lid on my childhood nostalgia.) But every so often, you hear an artist who, more or less, makes the art they want to make and not what a studio wants. And it keeps the art, the genre alive.

(If a studio does come along and offers you millions to make the music they want to hear, please don’t turn down the offer on my account!)