Over a year after Punjab-rapper-cum-singer Sidhu Moosewala’s killing, his voice has been recreated through an AI mode (Artificial Intelligence). All the nuances, the tone, the tenor, and the sharpness of Moosewala’s chords remain. And one may start grooving as if it is a Moosewala sung song unless someone tells you it is an AI-generated Moosewala voice.
Later though, Amarjit Singh, the engineer behind it all put out an announcement on the media that Moosewala’s family has conveyed their disagreement to the engineers who are using the singer’s voice to develop content and therefore, would not be using his voice anymore something that Amarjit Singh worked on for months to perfect.
Sidhu Moosewala was killed in a shootout on May 29 last year. His killing left millions of fans shattered. Moosewala had a huge fan base in India and outside the country which made him a superstar in the world of music in a short time span. He released several dozens of songs that monopolised the charts over time. Even after his sudden demise his unreleased as well as his released songs created history.
The singer’s death in his 20s left a huge void in the Punjabi music industry, but to overcome this loss in his own way Amarjit Singh from the US stunned all Moosewala fans by creating song cover by generating his AI software Stable Diffusion.
Some fans are upset about the adulteration of the original voice. They are raising questions about the moral and legal significance with regard to the use of someone’s voice for creative objectives without permission.
While he claims to do it for the love of art, concerns occur about possible harm to an artist’s image and the need for laws surrounding AI-generated content.
Moose Wala’s voice singing classic songs like Gurdas Maan’s ‘Challa’ or Surjit Bindrakhiya’s ‘Tera Yaar Bolda’ has no doubt caught the attention of fans. The AI form is also creating a buzz on social media.