Participants 2024

BOTUOSO

AI Song Contest 2024 / participants

TEAM / BOTUOSO
SONG / Rabbit Hole

About the TEAM

Botuoso comprises of Katherine Canoville, Don Bones and Harry Coney, successful innovators who came together to explore exciting collaborations between artificial intelligence and human creators.

Katherine Canoville is a successful world fusion pioneer who co-established Nation Records, having worked with Talvin Singh, Transglobal Underground, Asian Dub Foundation and Jah Wobble. Her knowledge and expertise in music management and track creation is invaluable to the group.

Don Bones is a songwriter, graphic designer and festivals organiser. A lover of diverse and original sounds, during the lockdown, he experimented with digital soundscapes, something he has continued ever since.

Harry Coney is the final member of the trio. A data analyst with an IT background, the advent of computer intelligence is of specific interest to him. With a love of music, and interests in philosophy and science, his varied background offers insight into the future role advanced technology will play in our lives.

About the SONG

Rabbit Hole is the topical story of a bored young man searching for UFOs on his phone, finding himself sucked into a rabbit hole of dubious and dangerous conspiracy theories. In a short period of time he becomes a fully-fledged conspiracist, denying medical science and the climate crisis. Blaming feminism for his dating difficulties, he tumbles headfirst into a quagmire of toxic and bigotry and hatred, where dangerous consequences ultimately follow.

Topical, poignant, and thought-provoking, Rabbit Hole is a quirky rap-operatic tale of internet radicalisation taken to extremes, the results of which, often make the news, and yet, the early beginnings slip under the radar. In this chaotic world of ours where fake news is rife, intolerance is rising, and innocuous surfing can land impressionable young people into a web of hate manipulated by bad actors, this troublesome tale of misadventure is a warning to us all of how unchecked misinformation destroys lives.

The accompanying YouTube video features a varied cast of rabbits.

About the HUMAN-AI PROCESS

Rabbit Hole, the compelling tale of toxic internet misadventure, includes both operatic song interludes and rap verse. Assembling the track took several weeks as a collaborative effort between all three team members Don Bones, Katherine Canoville, and Harry Coney. The topic was comprehensively researched using input into Chat_GPT to suggest relevant material to develop into suitable lyrics, the social message of the track as important as its production. Each member of the team had specified roles in track creation, however the composition of the lyrics were a team effort, regular meetings over Zoom, determining the course of the finished article.

Due to issues of unauthorised mimicry, plagiarisation, and cultural misappropriation, AI rap has understandably developed a “bad rap” over the last few years. We as Botuoso sought to put the medium to fair use in our project, using ethical sources and positive intent to portray the voice of a radicalised young impressionable man from England.

Our aim, as a team working in tandem with artificial intelligence technology, was to make the vocals seem ultra-realistic, while simplifying the creative process using tools which anybody can access with ease, inspiring others to follow suit. Rather than training AI programs to emulate our own voice patterns, we made use of the pre-trained voices provided by online text to voice programs.

Eleven Labs (elevenlabs.io) provide a vast array of worldwide voices, including a varied selection of informal UK voices impossible to find elsewhere, especially created by actors for sound generation. The particular voice we utilised, fittingly portraying the naivety of the character, the rap sections of Rabbit Hole, a confession of how he became radicalised through internet conspiracies into full-on extremism.

The voice emulator wasn’t a rap generator, but rather, we adapted ordinary spoken sentences into the rap format, where necessary, alternating pitch and adding echo and reverb to give the impression of continuous flow. Line after line of vocals were created separately and painstakingly coordinated with the beat to give the impression of a genuine performance. Some words and phrases required speeding-up, while others were reduced in tempo, the result, a human-AI collaboration which sounds like a purely human rap, which is a significant achievement in itself.

The operatic song sections were provided from another text to song application called Voicemod ( https://tuna.voicemod.net/text-to-song), a Welsh tenor vocalist “Joe” (a paid professional voice actor), ably singing the chorus of Rabbit Hole from basic text input, providing eerily deep vocals between the spoken word.

The music video we especially created for the track, was a human-AI collaboration in itself, making use of Magic Studio’s Art Generator (https://magicstudio.com/ai-art-generator/), frames edited and linked to create a memorable rabbit-themed accompaniment to the music.

Video

Lyrics

Sung Intro:

Going Down The Rabbit Hole
Going Down The Rabbit Hole

Sung Chorus:

Deeper and deeper we go
Down the Rabbit Hole

Rap:

Once upon a time
Lived life normally
Never got worried
Nothing bothered me

Did not watch the news
Or care what goes on
Suddenly I changed
My troubles had begun

One evening I was bored
I was all alone
Chemtrails, flying saucers
Scrolling on my phone

Next, I clicked a link
Found myself in a chat
Scary space aliens
Wanted me as their lab rat

If I didn’t watch out
They’d come for me next
They’ll destroy us all
Said the doomsday text

Sleeping with the lights on
Terrified of the dark
Jarring through my brain
When dogs begin to bark

Lizard men were hunting
Disguised as liberals
If we didn’t drain the swamp
They’d microchip our skulls

Government was in on it
lockdowns and vaccines
Paranoia full alert
Nanobots, 5G machines

Science was the enemy
The world had gone to pot
Fifteen minute cities
A communist plot

Didn't doubt them once
Never was a thinker
Swallowed propaganda
Hook, line and sinker

Couldn’t get a date
Chat-up lines unskilled
Blaming feminism
I became red-pilled

Denying climate change
Told it was a scam
Said they needed cash
So I stole from my mam!

Sung Chorus:

Deeper and deeper we go
Down the rabbit hole
Where we’ll end jup, no-one knows
Down the rabbit hole

Rap:

Deeper down the rabbit hole
There’s no turning back
My brainwashed psyche
Was under attack

Opposing the mainstream
Fearful of elites
Reds under the bed
Hiding under the sheets

Obsessed with Bilderberg
Fearful of Bill Gates
Losing all control
Of my mental states

Seething with anger
Conscience debased
Podcasts telling me
I’m being replaced

Scapegoating immigrants
Anxiety turned to hate
If I didn't act now
It would be too late

Chanting No Surrender
Marching with hooligans
Foaming at the mouth
At non-binary and trans

Fascist salutes started
After downing cans of beers
Speaker after speaker
Ranting to our fears

Said we shouldn’t reply
On the ballot box alone
Our time had finally come
So I hurried quickly home

Rushing to my basement
Locking myself in
Logging on the net
With an evil manic grin

Perusing the dark web
Prepared for Armageddon
Cops busted down the door
Not my fault, I was led on

Too late for excuses
Now I'm locked-up in a cell
Staring at the wall
My radicalised hell

Careful what you watch
Conspiracists ain't funny
Don't end up like me
I'm not a happy bunny

Sung Chorus:

No way back, we’ve gone so low
Down the rabbit hole
Lost my mind, I sold my soul
Down the rabbit hole

Check out the other
songs of 2024