New AI-powered Music Producer Shows What’s Possible for Fashion

Creatives have an embarrassment of algorithmic riches on their hands, with a mounting array of AI tools for artists, designers, photo assistants, writers and more.

Now another, called Collab Club, is entering the fray, this time for the music biz — and it’s bringing more than a catchy hook and a back beat.

As a new platform for artists, it’s offering AI music producers trained by real ones, including some top talent working in the industry today.

That framework is intriguing and offers some inspiration for other fields too, like fashion.

The platform emphasizes “ethical generative AI,” which means it doesn’t scrape other people’s work without permission to train its models. That’s obviously a dig at a controversial tech practice firing up rights owners across music, film and publishing. It’s also a clue that the offering isn’t a one-size-fits-all tool churned out by Big Tech.

The credit for Collab Club goes to music tech firm Lemonaide. Good thing, too. Because the approach was clearly crafted by a developer who understood the business.

“All AI models are massive sets of data,” explained Michael Jacob, Lemonaide founder and chief executive officer. “We’re taking the bet that people don’t just want to work with an AI model; they want to work with creative materials and creative people.”

As its first producer, Lemonaide signed Kato on the Track, then worked with him to train the AI on his music catalogue. Few artists get to collaborate with a producer who’s worked with Tyga, Joyner Lucas, Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg. But anyone can tap into the AI he trained himself.

“The technology and AI training that went into my model is incredible,” he said. “I’m just excited to work with the brilliant Lemonaide team to be the first producer to have their own AI model and offer it to beat makers and producers around the world.”

The fashion translation might be an AI trained on an artistic director’s work — previous and current collections, and even unpublicized sketches and ideations — opening up new possibilities.

An AI like that can collaborate with anyone, from VIP clientele for a personalized capsule collection, to new or alternate types of artists and even another AI.