What can one of the most groundbreaking musical genres tell us about our creative future in the age of AI?
For the last two years I've attended MAICON, the Marketing AI Institute's event in Cleveland, Ohio. I'll be back again in October. If you'll be there, send me a message. I'd love to connect!
Both the last two years (and planning to again in 2025), before diving into the world of AI and marketing, I paid a visit to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which is directly across the street from the convention center.
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Cleveland isn’t the only city to lay claim to the origins of rock & roll music. Memphis would have a strong claim as well. But it was Cleveland radio disc jockey Alan Freed that named, branded, and marketed rock & roll. There'd simply be no genre of music known as rock & roll without Cleveland, Ohio.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is a fantastic place to visit if you have an appreciation for popular music. The selection process for inductees is less-than-transparent and it's sometimes hard to understand why your favorite band hasn't received consideration. It's certainly not perfect and there are many detractors that say the very idea of something like doesn’t fit into the spirit of rock. I disagree.
The exhibits, photos, videos, and artifacts of rock & roll history found within the Hall of Fame museum's walls are something to experience as a music fan. I believe that having something like this really puts creativity into context. It's helps us to make connections that we may not otherwise make if we're stuck in our Spotify playlist of the same songs over and over.
For better or for worse, that's what it's done for me as a music fan and an AI enthusiast. Let's talk about why:
AI as a Medium for Human Creativity
This story is getting published in a week that's seen amazing new models, including Claude's Opus 4.1 and the long-awaited GPT-5. We're making significant advances in the way LLMs work and the richness of outputs from these models are incredible in the context of where we've come from over the last few years.
Despite these advances, and with talk of looming AGI (artificial general intelligence), and even superintelligence, for now, generative AI is a powerful tool. It remains just a tool.
Humans make AI. Humans use AI.
With everything, humans take stuff to extremes. There is an influx of totally AI-generated content filling our digital channels. "AI slop" is the term that is commonly assigned. That's a serious problem that we need to work through. This is the point that I don't think gets shared enough:
Not everything that AI touches turns to slop.
Case-in-point: this is a refreshed version of a post I made two years ago. I tried to have both ChatGPT and Claude help me with refreshes. Even after giving them what I think are pretty good prompts, I came out with results that were fine, but they weren't me. I ended up making the updates myself, remixing my original with the new ideas generated by AI and creating something new. I've also edited the hell out of it.
There's AI in here, somewhere. But it's still my work.
To quote Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Eric Clapton, "it's in the way that you use it,".
AI will continue to improve, and perhaps more quickly than we are ready for. Certainly, there are economic and societal issues to consider. For right now though, this is still the relationship we should hold with our AI systems. The way you prompt it and the context in which you activate it shape the results you achieve from AI. And yet, they're still not quite human - or at least - they're not quite individually me (or you).
In short:
Flooding your channels with 100% AI generated content: not-so-good.
Responsibly using AI to empower and enhance your ideas: not-so-bad?
Let's see if I can illustrate why.
Hip-hop parallels with generative AI
My thoughts drift to the Rock Hall's exhibit from a couple of years back called "Hip-hop at 50.” This insightful exhibition guides visitors through the roots and history of hip-hop, from its early beginnings until modern times.
I found some connections between the artists and music featured in that exhibit and current discussions about AI. Of course, the advent of hip-hop occurred for very different reasons and in a much different setting than generative AI. But many of the styles and elements found in hip-hop were born out of the creative repurposing of existing music and equipment.
Sound familiar?
There seems to be a parallel. In fact, the parallels grow even more as we examine these five areas:
Remixing and repurposing
DJs used turntables to scratch and repeat short samples of records in creative ways, remixing parts of existing songs into new sounds.
Hip-hop popularized the concept of the breakbeat, which sampled existing drumbeats from other music, looping them to create new dance rhythms. Whether you recognize it or not, you hear the breakbeat across popular music even today. That wasn't AI. Those were real, live, innovative artists.
Technological innovation
Rudimentary digital technology, like 1970s and 80s synthesizers and the Roland TR-808 drum machine, were used in hip-hop in ways that perhaps the designers didn't intend. But it shaped the music of the '80s and '90s. The 808 was a mainstay of hip-hop and its sound also drifted into other genres of popular music. There have been documentaries made about the 808 and its impact on music. It gets name-checked in popular music of today.
That tech, and more importantly the humans that used it in creative ways, launched what has been the biggest and fastest growing popular music genre of the last half-century.
Sampling as a creative force
Sampling is the art of taking existing music, cutting it up and incorporating it into new music. Sometimes it's just a beat. Sometimes it's a sound or a chorus. Sampling allowed artists to transform existing sound recordings into new compositions.
You can draw a comparison to the way that large language models organize and recombine data to create new content across various art forms. The way we prompt AI and use new techniques to get more out of our models could be seen as akin to sampling.
Sampling wasn't without its issues - particularly legal and copyright issues. It's no exaggeration to say that hip-hop's sampling battles helped to shape modern copyright and intellectual property law. These weren't just legal squabbles. They were battles over the nature of creativity itself. Does building on existing work constitute theft or transformation? Who owns a drum break?
We're watching the same drama play out with AI, and here's what hip-hop history teaches us: The technology doesn't go backward (even as many of us wish it would).
Hip-hop artists and producers didn't stop sampling. They got smarter about it. Producers learned to chop samples beyond recognition. They started recreating sounds instead of lifting them directly. They built new business models around clearances and collaborations.
I believe the same thing will happen, in time, with generative AI. The lawsuits will settle. The boundaries will get defined. New frameworks will emerge. The slop will get filtered out. The creators who figure out how to work within these new frameworks will move forward and create the next generational shift in creativity and popular culture.
Democratization of technology
The democratization of technology is a recurring theme in both music production and AI. Just as the 808 allowed more musicians access to quality sounds, widely available and low-cost generative AI tools have made advanced technology accessible to more people.
I think that generative AI has the potential to democratize creativity in a big way. Creative projects that once required design and art training, software development knowledge, or writing expertise, can now more easily be accomplished by anyone. I’m personally planning new projects that I would simply not be able to accomplish on my own without help from AI, and I find new uses for the technology every day.
AI also has the potential to democratize the user experience. AI-empowered accessibility and the capabilities to offer content in many languages has the potential to open up content to new audiences.
Drawing inspiration from pioneering artists
The innovative spirit of hip-hop pioneers like DJ Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa, The Sugarhill Gang, and Run-D.M.C., to creatively and rebelliously use low-cost, accessible equipment and existing recorded music to create both a musical and, in many ways, a social revolution, is inspirational to me. This spirit of innovation and influence has continued for the past 50 years. Hip-hop artists and producers continue to expand the boundaries of what can be done in the music studio.
If hip-hop has taught us anything, it's that creativity thrives when we make the tools our own. Maybe we can learn from it as we build towards the future with AI. Humanity is vital to making sure that we use AI in responsible, ethical, and creative ways.
I'm not suggesting that we, using AI, can create content as inventive and original as the pioneer creators of one of the most important, popular, and influential musical genres of the last half-century. But we could try!