Lucas was 17 when, in December 2016, with no warning, he suffered a big, traumatic bleed throughout his mind.
He did not get up till virtually 4 months later.
Unknowingly, he had been residing with a defect within the blood vessels generally known as an AVM (arteriovenous malformation), a ticking time bomb which had ruptured, and the following three years of his life have been spent in restoration in a care residence.
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Lucas spent virtually 4 months in a coma after struggling a mind bleed in 2016. Pic: Fanvue World AI Creator Awards
He could not stroll and struggled to speak. Writing down his ideas, virtually like a diary, was one thing he says he wished to do from very early on.
“During my care home days when I couldn’t really express myself very well – I still can’t – but I could write about it, it was an outlet for me,” he says. “Since I woke up, I’ve been writing… but for a long time I couldn’t record anything.”
Lucas, now 26, has spent years engaged on his bodily restoration and speech. However when he was finally bodily capable of report the songs he had been writing himself, he grew to become pissed off by the way in which his voice had modified.
“It never sounded how I had [it in] my head,” he says. “I’m very monotone in how I speak, I struggle to really display emotion.”
And so he turned to AI (synthetic intelligence). Now, Lucas is also referred to as The BTO Child, and is one in every of 15 creators from around the globe, shortlisted from greater than 500 entries, for the inaugural Future Sound Awards – celebrating synthetic intelligence in music.
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DJ David Guetta is among the many big-name artists who’ve embraced AI. Pic: Christoph Reichwein/picture-alliance/dpa/AP July 2025
It was one of many points behind the Hollywood actors’ and writers’ strikes in 2023 – and the newer online game actor strike, which resulted in June after practically a 12 months of business motion.
Regardless of the criticism, AI is not going away. Final 12 months was a “breakout” 12 months for the expertise in music, in keeping with the Worldwide Music Summit’s newest annual enterprise report, with 60m customers utilizing AI software program.
Lucas says he is an ideal instance of how the expertise can be utilized for good.
“I’ve been able to use AI to express how I’m feeling,” he says. “It’s been big for me to create [music] that I’m proud of. I can see the arguments [against it], but from my view I know AI helped me create something I couldn’t before. I’m not Adele, but I have been able to make something that I’m proud of and that expresses my view point of what’s happened to me.”
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‘AI is reducing the boundaries’
BTO stands for Beat The Odds and his shortlisted monitor is titled AI Gave Me A Voice. “I pinch myself every day because this just can’t be true,” is the opening line – which he says displays how far he has come from the second he wakened and found what had occurred.
“That comes from reality. I do have moments where I think so much has happened that it must not be true… every line means something to me.”
Lucas, who lives in Nottingham, used the AI-powered music manufacturing platform TwoShot to create the monitor, utilizing prompts on what he wished for the sound alongside his lyrics, impressed by melodic rap.
“I think we’re gonna get quite a lot more people like me that can’t record music and have been given a voice through AI,” he says. “AI is lowering the barriers to entry for a lot of things.” Which could be a adverse in addition to a optimistic, he acknowledges. “We’ll have to see where it goes.”
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Gallis is amongst 15 music creators shortlisted for the Future Sound Awards. Pic: Fanvue World AI Creator Awards
Launched by the Fanvue World AI Creator Awards, The Future Sound Awards purpose to focus on the moral use of AI in music, organisers say. Fanvue is a subscription creator platform with greater than 180,000 customers.
Some 15 artists from the US, Europe, Australia and Asia, in addition to the UK, have been shortlisted for prizes, and the winners will probably be introduced later in September.
Lucas is one in every of two British creators on the listing, alongside Gallis, from Essex. The 31-year-old first dipped his toe into the waters of the music trade about 10 years in the past, after becoming a member of the urban-pop boy band Mr Meanor, however says the trade was onerous and “it all got a bit too much”.
He’s now a tattoo artist and wonderful painter, however continued his songwriting and began to check out AI music manufacturing instruments about 18 months in the past.
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UK Music organised a protest towards AI copyright plans at Westminster earlier in the summertime
AI has ‘made me extra inventive’
As an artist, he says he had his personal considerations about AI earlier than he began utilizing it himself, significantly after picture mills began turning into outstanding on-line.
“It was stealing the work that I was doing,” is how he describes his preliminary emotions. “But I ended up jumping on board with it and for me personally, it’s inspired me so much. It’s made me quicker at what I’m doing, it’s made me more creative. And I think it’s the same with music. I think it’s gonna, if anything, grow the industry.”
Nonetheless, he says he agrees with criticism in regards to the ethics of how some AI fashions are skilled – following controversy about work by human music artists and authors getting used with out consent. “And trying to impersonate exactly someone else and using someone else’s voice, I don’t agree with that at all,” he provides.
Gallis’s shortlisted track, Chiropractor emerged from “friendly competition” with a neighborhood of creators he got here throughout when he moved into AI, buying and selling suggestions and rankings. The style is Trinibad, which he says there is not sufficient of “in the AI world”, and the monitor is designed to get folks dancing.
“I mainly stick to urban music, but I like writing in a lot of different styles,” he says. “I’ve done house songs, I’ve done UK drill songs, Afrobeats, amapiano. I’m a bit of a vibes man so if it makes me dance and move and smile that’s when I really enjoy it.”
Narcis Marincat, head of AI at Fanvue, says the tales behind the chosen songs present a “richness and human emotion” that appealed to him and different judges.
“The impact of AI in music continues to divide opinion,” he says. “But for the first time, via the Future Sound Awards, we’re able to show a different perspective on the positive impact of AI in music – uncovering the real people behind the technology and sharing their stories and music.”
