ASAP Rocky Shares His Take on AI in Music, Says He Prefers to Do Things 'Practically'

In a new interview with Antonio Johri for Complex, ASAP Rocky shared his thoughts on AI in music and stressed that he prefers to do things “practically.”

When asked for his thoughts on the hot topic, Rocky gave a diplomatic answer but indicated that he can’t see himself using the technology personally.

“It depends,” he shared. “It depends. I feel like when guys like Flexin’ Phoenix [Fenix Flexin], whatever his name is, and Tyga—I don’t know their process of how they make it, but I know when they made it, they caught a lot of backlash and shit like that… Me, personally, I prefer to do things myself, practically.”

He suggested that if someone wanted to use the technology to remove vocals from a track, like the artist formerly known as Kanye West’s “Good Morning,” that could be a beneficial use of the technology. However, he’s very much aware of the “negative connotations” of AI.

“I don't think when it's used in certain ways that it's necessarily a right or wrong thing,” he continued. “AI is supposed to be a tool in that sense. If somebody does a totally AI-generated song where all they did was prompt something, then I think that that's their thing. But who am I to say what's standard and what's not? I'm just doing me out here and I'm doing my music practically—the right way. I'm really tapping with musicians, producers, beat makers, just to convey my sound and develop my sound.”

“We got a single dropping Friday, ‘Shroom Clouds.’ And Disc 2 following up right after that,” he said. “Sorry for the wait. I just needed to get off this tour so I could, you know, concentrate, do things the right way. I know people will prefer for it to be right than [for] it to be rushed.”

Read the full interview with ASAP Rocky here. Up top, revisit the video for “Punk Rocky,” a highlight off the originally released version of Don’t Be Dumb.