When a fan lately posted on X, “bbno$ is my favourite rapper why does he must be so imply to AI artists? 🥺🥺,” the Canadian musician did not provide a delicate rationalization. As an alternative, he fired again with a easy, unambiguous response: “FUCK AI.”
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It is the type of blunt sincerity that defines bbno$ (pronounced “child no cash”) — the viral rapper often known as a lot for his absurdist humor as his meticulous strategy to unbiased artistry. However behind the all-caps expletive is a transparent philosophy: In an period when algorithms can churn out songs, photographs, and movies sooner than any human hand, he’s selecting to guess on folks.
That selection is on full show in his current video for “ADD,” a hyper-colorful, kinetic collage constructed fully from fan-made animation. As an alternative of outsourcing to a studio or feeding prompts into generative software program, bbno$ tapped over 20 unbiased artists — a lot of whom had already created fan artwork of him on-line — to deliver the visible to life. The result’s a whirlwind of distinct animation types stitched collectively, every phase a small love letter from one creator to a different.
“There’s two issues to it,” he informed Mashable at TwitchCon 2025, on the day of the discharge of his self-titled ninth studio album. “One, when folks spend their complete life getting good at one thing, it type of sucks when you’ll be able to click on a button and make one thing that’s extra impactful. So I simply wished to provide again to the neighborhood that is proven me a lot love.”
The opposite cause is even easier: bbno$ feels higher supporting folks and human-made artwork. “It type of makes me really feel good once I’m supporting different artists, as a result of I’m an artist too,” he explains. “I keep in mind once I wasn’t making a living — it is such an exhilarating feeling if you lastly can. So if I may help different artists get that, I need to.”
The “ADD” challenge took six months to finish, which is a herculean effort for a three-minute track. However the payoff was each a visible spectacle and a inventive assertion: proof that collaboration throughout 23 completely different minds, every bringing their very own idiosyncrasies and creative POVs, might create one thing no machine might replicate.
“I do not know if I am going to ever get one other piece of visible content material that is that stimulating ever once more,” he admits. “As a result of it was 20 completely different folks, twenty completely different minds.”
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That type of enthusiasm has lengthy been a part of bbno$’s attraction. His catalog, which spans goofy hits like “Lalala” with Y2K and extra experimental cuts, thrives on a way of human chaos that algorithms cannot fairly faux. Even when he leans into web virality, there’s a pulse of self-awareness. He is in on the joke, however he’s additionally lifeless critical in regards to the craft.
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His mistrust of AI is not rooted in concern of change a lot as empathy for working artists. In an age when tech corporations are pouring billions into AI music and video instruments, and when artists’ work is being scraped to coach these programs, bbno$ is considering the folks behind the artwork.
“Huge organizations are beginning to make the most of AI and software program to take folks’s jobs away,” he says. “One in every of my finest buddies works at Amazon, and he was like, ‘I’ve a name with India. I’m presenting one thing that’s sadly going to take lots of people’s jobs.’ He is aware of it sucks, however he additionally must make a dwelling. That is simply the place issues are progressing. I’m simply making an attempt to do my half as a lot as I presumably can.”
It is not a campaign towards know-how — bbno$ constructed his profession on the web, in any case — however relatively a push to protect a type of inventive integrity that is turning into more and more endangered. Lately, artwork is knowledge, and he is making an attempt to maintain the human half alive. “To maintain folks going, to maintain the practice on the opposite aspect,” he says, “it’s a must to fund them. That is the one method.”
There’s additionally a philosophical throughline right here: bbno$ has at all times thrived on collaboration. His early success got here from meme-driven partnerships with producers like Y2K and Diamond Pistols, and extra lately, his output has ramped as much as near-weekly releases that depend on a world internet of creators, artists, editors, and followers. His total profession is a case research within the inventive potentialities of the digital age, the place artwork is constructed by folks, not applications.
“I’ve by no means actually been one to place a whole lot of results in my movies,” he says. “If I do, it’s received to be one thing that took a yr to make, not simply one thing you plug in.” That ethos extends past visuals; it is in the way in which he approaches songwriting, content material creation, and even his signature humor. All the pieces feels slightly tough across the edges, however that is what makes it human.
The irony, in fact, is that AI might simply imitate bbno$’s extra surface-level quirks and offbeat movement, however it could actually’t replicate the sincerity that drives them. Creativity, for him, is an act of care.
On YouTube, the feedback beneath “ADD” learn like a digital roll name of collaboration. Followers and animators tagged their timestamps, celebrating one another’s work. “I animated 0:00–0:09! Everybody did such a incredible job
Over on X, an animator named Kenzie shared a clip of bbno$ commissioning them for a challenge after they’d been “unemployed within the animation business for 2 years due to AI.” The submit has since racked up greater than 350,000 likes — a glimpse at how deeply the gesture resonated.
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For a video that might’ve been made by a single generative mannequin, “ADD” as an alternative turned a showcase of neighborhood. It is the type of messy, vibrant collaboration that solely people might pull off.
“I simply wished to provide again,” he repeats. “That’s actually it.”
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