Reincarnated: AI Art & the Lessons of Kendrick Lamar
Years ago I started using Deep Style (neural style transfer) and created an image archive of styles that range from text and stock images to vintage tapestries. One of my favorites was applied to a photo of rapper Tupac Shakur (see below). Neural style transfer or deep style refers to algorithms that manipulate digital images, or videos, in order to adopt the visual style of another image. Deep style refers to a technique for implementing machine learning, which is a modern approach to achieve AI.
Neural style transfer is an optimization technique used to take two images — a content image and a style reference image — and blend them together so the output image looks like the content image, but “painted” in the style of the style reference image. — via TensorFlow
For the AI-generated Kendrick Lamar portrait I used MidJourney to create the source or content image and Deep Dream Generator to apply the same style that was used in the “Pac” portrait. The reason I chose this style is because of both rapper’s use of the pen to write. In the early 2000s, long before Kendrick’s first album dropped, Tupac Shakur published The Rose That Grew from Concrete, which is a collection of his poetry.
In the event of my Demise
when my heart can beat no more
I Hope I Die For A Principle
or A Belief that I had Lived 4— Tupac Shakur
This poem explores mortality and the desire to make a meaningful impact in the face of impending death. Later, Kendrick Lamar was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Music, becoming the first musician outside of the classical and jazz genres to receive the honor. Lamar won the prize for DAMN. that the Pulitzer board called “a virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life.”
For his recent album gnx and, more specifically, the song “Reincarnated”, Lamar connects with his ancestors that include Tupac Shakur, John Lee Hooker, and Billie Holiday. The song (and Lamar’s rap flow) comes from Tupac’s 1997 “Made Niggaz”. In his song, according to Bunna Bits and Rhymes, Lamar is suggesting that Black artists “inherit the legacy, triumphs, and lessons of their ancestors, reincarnating their greatness while trying to avoid their pitfalls.” While Kendrick Lamar is not the first, nor will he be the last to do this (ex. D’Angelo’s Marvin Gaye connection), he is the first to reference artists I previously paid homage to using generative AI. This includes the MidJourney-generated “Boogie Man” (see above) and “Lady Day” (below) that was created using DDG’s Deep Style.
Another life had placed me as a black woman in a Chitlin’ Circuit
Seductive vocalist as the promoter hit the curatins
My voice was angelic straight from heaven, the crowd sobbed
A musical genius what the articles emphasized
Had everything I wanted but I couldn’t escape addiction
Heroin needles had me in fetal position, restricted
Turned on my family, I went wherever cameras be
Cocaine, no private planes for my insanity… — Kendrick Lamar, Reincarnated
The photo I used for the Billie Holliday portrait is from the William P. Gottlieb collection at the Library of Congress. In accordance with the wishes of Gottlieb, the photographs in the collection entered into the public domain on February 16, 2010. The style I used came from African wax printed fabric. This method was introduced to West Africans by Dutch merchants during the 19th century, who took inspiration from native Indonesian batik designs. Wax prints are considered to be a type of nonverbal communication among African women, carrying their messages out into the world.
Similar to Kendrick Lamar, I often use my AI-generated imagery to inspire, uplift, and heal people. I use styles that reflect my interests such as text (including as visual patterns), vintage and African wax print fabrics. In “Strange Fruit” I was inspired by one of my early linocut prints. A linocut is a type of relief, or block print. Basically, the artist carves an image into a linoleum (lino) block and what’s left of the block is inked and printed.
The Kim example (above) is a new version of something from my past.
While I don’t struggle with substance abuse and I’m not obsessing over greed or capitalism. My interest in the hidden and more overt symbols and references from Lamar’s art stems from a similar desire to honor those who came before, as well as digital aesthetics, which includes the deployment creative AI to transpose, transform, and transcend pre-page (analog) arts and crafts for the digital era, making fresh work for new audiences. My work counters the notion that there is no established aesthetics associated with AI-generated art.