Cape Verde<\/a>, one of the few African states with a dedicated AI policy. Benito Lopes, the expo\u2019s director since 2024, said the discussions were meant to give performers \u201cmore knowledge to explore [AI] the best way without losing their human identity and their creativity\u201d.<\/p>\nFor the country\u2019s culture minister, Augusto Jorge de Albuquerque Veiga, who has a goal of making Cape Verde \u201ca hub of world culture, especially in music\u201d, the priority is ensuring local artists get the financial support to eke out a living in today\u2019s world.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to work with it, not to be eaten by it,\u201d Veiga told the Guardian. \u201cI think that AI will never cover what\u2019s authentic \u2026 AI is the present already, so we have to discuss this and find ways to work with AI for the country, for the culture and for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
The crowd during a set by Patche di Rima at the Atlantic Music Expo. Photograph: Ricci Shryock\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
Given that the culture ministry\u2019s budget, at $6m, is less than 1% of the national budget, Veiga has been lobbying to get allocations to the sector from Cape Verde\u2019s tourism tax and has created diaspora bonds targeting the large diaspora spread across places such as Boston and Lisbon.<\/p>\n
The expo, which precedes the Kriol jazz festival, has long sought to be a bridge between Africa, Europe and the Americas but also emphasises the place of live music and human interaction in an era of synthetic sounds.<\/p>\n
The veteran Bissau-Guinean singer Patche di Rima, who performed on the last day, said: \u201cI am glad to be here \u2026 an artist without media and networking is nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most delegates highlighted how AI-driven tools for mixing, mastering and data-driven marketing offered a way for indie artists with shoestring budgets to compete globally. Entrepreneurs working in the sector were keen to stress that AI was not a replacement for talent.<\/p>\n
Patche di Rima performs on stage. Photograph: Ricci Shryock\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
Jos\u00e9 Moura, a co-founder of Sona, an AI startup that helps artists use text prompts to polish songs, said the technology could empower artists in the global south to extend their reach without compromising the uniqueness of the music.<\/p>\n
\u201cHomogenisation happens when the tool doesn\u2019t know where you\u2019re from,\u201d he said. \u201cUnlike conventional AI that trains on global averages, Sona is built on local music, governed by local artists, so when it amplifies your sound, it amplifies exactly what makes it yours. It\u2019s the opposite of erasure \u2026 artists decide what gets preserved before the AI touches anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sambaiana, a seven-woman ensemble from Brazil, gave their first performance outside their home country at the expo. For the group \u2013 a rarity in the male-dominated samba genre \u2013 it was a chance to plug in to a new but familiar world.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe feel honoured to represent the Brazilian music style,\u201d said Ju Moraes, the lead singer. \u201cWe recognise ourselves here, the energy, the people, the culture and even the architectures are very similar to Bahia.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rayra Mayara, a vocalist who also plays the four-stringed cavaquinho, said technology was no match for the emotion of being on stage. \u201cWe are seven women and no technology can substitute the feeling we give when we play, sing and talk about our daily lives,\u201d she said. \u201cAI can complement the production process but it is not as a substitute to the human.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last July, the Nigerian singer-songwriter Fave found herself caught up in a viral moment: an unauthorised version of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,343,344,85,46,125],"class_list":["post-416114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}