Warner Music China has signed a strategic partnership with Dream Maker, a digital artist company based mostly in China.
The deal, introduced on Friday (June 12), will see Warner Music China present music manufacturing, distribution, advertising, and expertise administration assist throughout Dream Maker‘s roster of digital performers.
It marks the most recent transfer in Warner Music China‘s increasing digital artist technique, one which gained world consideration earlier this yr when the label’s AI-powered digital singer, Wu AI-Hua, went viral.
Dream Maker says it has developed greater than 3,000 digital singers, who’ve collectively amassed greater than 10 billion video views throughout platforms.
The company’s roster is led by digital artists together with KONG, DL. Ji, and DL. L9.
KONG, Dream Maker says, ranks No. 1 on Douyin‘s digital class for each single-livestream viewership and income.
Not like purely AI-generated performers, each Dream Maker digital artist is powered by an actual human performer engaged on a one-to-one foundation, the corporate says, with real-time movement seize expertise used to animate digital avatars for livestreaming, dwell singing, and IP interactions.
In response to the press launch, the partnership will put “moral safeguards on the coronary heart of all their tasks, in order that human expertise is protected”.
Human artists on Warner Music China‘s roster will even have the chance to function on the digital artists’ tracks, the businesses mentioned, “introducing them to new followers and experimenting with new sounds.”
Below the phrases of the deal, Warner Music China will supply assist throughout music planning, A&R manufacturing, copyright distribution, built-in advertising, expertise administration, and dwell performances.
A press release from the 2 corporations mentioned the partnership “goes past a easy cross-industry useful resource alignment” and “represents a deeper exploration into the business worth and artistic boundaries of digital IPs.”
“Empowered by an expert music ecosystem, digital artists will evolve past being mere on-line companions or interactive figures,” the Warner Music China assertion added.
“As a substitute, they’ll have the chance to be heard and shared by means of totally realized musical tasks and distinctive sonic identities.”
The Dream Maker deal follows the arrival earlier this yr of digital singer Wu AI-Hua on the Warner Music China roster, in a collaboration with the character’s creator, Chinese language new-media artist Wu Zhiqi.
Promotional paintings from the label framed the transfer as Wu AI-Hua becoming a member of Warner Music China, in a venture that attracted consideration each in China and internationally.
Wu AI-Hua’s debut music video, launched in January, surpassed 10 million views throughout platforms.
Quite than adopting the hyper-futuristic aesthetic typical of many digital performers, Wu AI-Hua attracts visible inspiration from Sixties–80s Hong Kong wuxia cinema: grainy textures, dramatic lighting, and a intentionally retro filmic environment.
Sonically, nevertheless, the venture pivots in the other way: Wu AI-Hua sings in English, over tracks that mix EDM and hip-hop with the stress of conventional Chinese language devices.
The venture’s visuals seem to have been produced utilizing Kling AI, the video technology mannequin developed by Chinese language tech firm Kuaishou, in keeping with the debut video’s official description, which credit Wu Zhiqi as a “Kling AI Creator.”
Though Wu AI-Hua is introduced as an AI character, her voice isn’t fully machine-made. Bandwagon Asia experiences that her vocals had been “manually post-processed by human producers,” which it notes is “a hybrid manufacturing strategy fairly than totally automated AI music technology”.
“If she sang in Chinese language, all the things could be too seamless, even perhaps predictable,” Wu Zhiqi advised China Each day in a February interview, on the choice to make use of English-language vocals.
“The English vocals present a sensory counterpoint to the wuxia visuals.
“I’m searching for that aesthetic friction – a conflict between historical imagery and a trendy, world sound – to offer the character a extra advanced, multidimensional texture.”
The one’s official credit listing Wu Zhiqi as composer, lyricist and producer alongside arrangers, a vocal producer and a mixer.
“AI isn’t magic,” Wu Zhiqi mentioned. “It’s troublesome. You want judgment, style, and data. In any other case, nothing works.”
Warner Music China mentioned in January that it plans to “leverage our world sources and {industry} experience to systematically advance Wu AI-Hua’s multilingual music creation, worldwide distribution, and cross-cultural collaborations.”
Elsewhere within the digital artist area in China, in 2021, Warner’s pan-Asian dance label Whet Data signed digital idol Ha Jiang – a deal that, on the time, was described as the primary of its variety between a serious report firm and a digital artist in Asia.
All three of the main music corporations have since invested in digital artist tasks.
Sony Music Leisure (Japan), for instance, operates digital expertise company VEE Digital Leisure – which it calls “the biggest digital expertise growth and administration venture in historical past” – and ran the PRISM Venture VTuber company, which signed a number of generations of digital expertise.
The Dream Maker partnership, nevertheless, represents a shift in scale for Warner Music China, transferring from particular person digital artist signings to a scientific tie-up with an organization that claims a roster of hundreds.Music Enterprise Worldwide
