When a fan just lately posted on X, “bbno$ is my favourite rapper why does he must be so imply to AI artists? 🥺🥺,” the Canadian musician did not be offering a gradual rationalization. As a substitute, he fired again with a easy, unambiguous reaction: “FUCK AI.”
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It is the type of blunt sincerity that defines bbno$ (pronounced “child no cash”) — the viral rapper referred to as a lot for his absurdist humor as his meticulous option to unbiased artistry. However in the back of the all-caps expletive is a transparent philosophy: In an technology when algorithms can churn out songs, pictures, and movies quicker than any human hand, he’s opting for to guess on folks.
That selection is on complete show in his fresh video for “ADD,” a hyper-colorful, kinetic collage constructed totally from fan-made animation. As a substitute of outsourcing to a studio or feeding activates into generative device, bbno$ tapped over 20 unbiased artists — lots of whom had already created fan artwork of him on-line — to carry the visible to existence. The result’s a whirlwind of distinct animation kinds stitched in combination, every phase a small love letter from one author to any other.
“There may be two issues to it,” he informed Mashable at TwitchCon 2025, at the day of the discharge of his self-titled 9th studio album. “One, when folks spend their entire existence getting just right at one thing, it roughly sucks when you’ll click on a button and make one thing that’s extra impactful. So I simply sought after to provide again to the neighborhood that is proven me such a lot love.”
The opposite reason why is even more practical: bbno$ feels higher supporting folks and human-made artwork. “It roughly makes me really feel just right when I am supporting different artists, as a result of I’m an artist too,” he explains. “I bear in mind after I wasn’t making a living — it is such a thrilling feeling whilst you in spite of everything can. So if I will lend a hand different artists get that, I need to.”
The “ADD” mission took six months to finish, which is a herculean effort for a three-minute tune. However the payoff used to be each a visible spectacle and an inventive remark: evidence that collaboration throughout 23 other minds, every bringing their very own idiosyncrasies and creative POVs, may just create one thing no system may just mirror.
“I do not know if I’m going to ever get any other piece of visible content material that is that stimulating ever once more,” he admits. “As it used to be 20 other folks, twenty other minds.”
That roughly enthusiasm has lengthy been a part of bbno$’s enchantment. His catalog, which spans goofy hits like “Lalala” with Y2K and extra experimental cuts, prospers on a way of human chaos that algorithms can not moderately faux. Even if he leans into web virality, there’s a pulse of self-awareness. He is in at the funny story, however he’s additionally useless thinking about the craft.
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His mistrust of AI is not rooted in concern of exchange such a lot as empathy for running artists. In an age when tech corporations are pouring billions into AI song and video equipment, and when artists’ paintings is being scraped to coach the ones techniques, bbno$ is considering the folks in the back of the artwork.
“Large organizations are beginning to make the most of AI and device to take folks’s jobs away,” he says. “One in every of my highest pals works at Amazon, and he used to be like, ‘I’ve a decision with India. I’m presenting one thing that’s sadly going to take a large number of folks’s jobs.’ He is aware of it sucks, however he should also make a dwelling. That is simply the place issues are progressing. I’m simply looking to do my section up to I in all probability can.”
It isn’t a campaign towards era — bbno$ constructed his occupation on the net, in spite of everything — however reasonably a push to keep a type of inventive integrity that is turning into more and more endangered. Nowadays, artwork is information, and he is looking to stay the human section alive. “To stay folks going, to stay the teach at the different aspect,” he says, “it’s important to fund them. That is the best approach.”
There’s additionally a philosophical throughline right here: bbno$ has at all times thrived on collaboration. His early luck got here from meme-driven partnerships with manufacturers like Y2K and Diamond Pistols, and extra just lately, his output has ramped as much as near-weekly releases that depend on a world internet of creators, artists, editors, and enthusiasts. His complete occupation is a case learn about within the inventive probabilities of the virtual age, the place artwork is constructed via folks, no longer methods.
“I have by no means in point of fact been one to position a large number of results in my movies,” he says. “If I do, it’s were given to be one thing that took a yr to make, no longer simply one thing you plug in.” That ethos extends past visuals; it is in the best way he approaches songwriting, content material advent, or even his signature humor. The whole thing feels somewhat tough across the edges, however that is what makes it human.
The irony, in fact, is that AI may just simply imitate bbno$’s extra surface-level quirks and offbeat drift, but it surely can not mirror the sincerity that drives them. Creativity, for him, is an act of care.
On YouTube, the feedback beneath “ADD” learn like a virtual roll name of collaboration. Fanatics and animators tagged their timestamps, celebrating every different’s paintings. “I animated 0:00–0:09! Everybody did such an out of this world activity
Over on X, an animator named Kenzie shared a clip of bbno$ commissioning them for a mission once they’d been “unemployed within the animation trade for 2 years on account of AI.” The put up 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 via a unmarried generative fashion, “ADD” as an alternative was a exhibit of neighborhood. It is the type of messy, colourful collaboration that best people may just pull off.
“I simply sought after to provide again,” he repeats. “That’s in point of fact it.”
