 What's up guys? Did you miss me? I've been posted in like two weeks. Man, I have a good reason I swear. So like two weeks ago, we went out of town. We did this really interesting event with South Coast Music Group, which is the babies label. Really cool, interesting event, put on by my friend Portia Marie. I learned a lot, made a lot of really cool people, but it did stop up my content flow. And then I hit the roll, man. We in the truck on the way back and I'm reading all these comments that y'all are shitting on my audio from the last video that I posted. So I was like, you know what? Let me take some time, step back, figure out what's going on on my end. So that way y'all can like, stay off my neck about it. Like, bro, I had people... I had people hitting me up on my DMs on Instagram just to roast me about it. But we back. So welcome to another episode of Counting Corey, where I pretty much want to give you my two cents, my thoughts, my ideas on some topics that's been happening to music this week. See what you guys think. So hopefully that we can create some type of discussion or at the very least you can get your music news from over here and out of those other places, right? But that being said, let's go ahead and get into these topics for today. Now, I had to report it, but I figured why not go ahead and get the sad news out of the way. I'm pretty sure that by now, you have heard of the untimely death of Pop Smoke or I would rather say the untimely murder of Pop Smoke, right? So a few days ago, I was reported that Pop Smoke had been killed in the LA home that he was ringing out for the week. And this is where things get like really weird to me and just it kind of makes me think that a Kogi situation where information was just moving so fast that we didn't really know what to believe and didn't know if it was something that should be believed and just so many false stories were getting put out that a lot of those stories I see are still actually floating around, but it was initially reported that he had been set up, right? So there were two thoughts behind it. Fans dug up pictures where one of his friends, I think his friend's name is Mike D, had posted a photo that had that address in the background that he didn't have to delete. Fans dug up another photo of Pop Smoke posting the tag from some high-end clothing that he bought that also had the address of the home that he was staying in. And this led people to believe that either A, he had been set up by his friend or B, that someone on the internet saw this address and just looked at it as like an opportunity to take advantage of the situation. Now, after a couple of days, after TMZ has reported that it may have been a targeted hit due to them having conversations with people who've seen the surveillance footage. And according to the reports, the surveillance footage shows four men who come to the house around 4.30 in the morning. One of them goes around to sneak in the back while the other three stay in the front. Moments later, the man that sneaks around the back comes through the front door, opens the door, lets the man into the house, and then we know what happened from there. Now, no one else got hurt in this situation, which has further been, you know, fueling the rumors that they believe that he's been set up, but his friend did take to Instagram to pretty much call out the rumors of people who were trying to say that he had something to do with it. So he took the Instagram and said, can't nothing express the pain I'm feeling? I just lost my fucking brother, my heart, my dogs, you guys have no type of sense of sympathy. Y'all don't know what's going on. Y'all come on here playing investigator and bashing me on the internet. I would never in my life let my brother out. I would never in my life set my brother up. We ate together, broke bread together. This really my mother child. So it was just outside of that. It was cool to see the love that kind of got outpoured for Pop Smoke. I mean, everyone from YG to the baby, to Nicki Minaj, to Meek Mill had something positive to say about Pop Smoke, right? Like he was another young act that a lot of us were looking forward to seeing just what moves he would make next in the music industry. And just I know especially for like my New York followers or even my New York friends, like this hit them home the most, right? Like losing someone from your local scene, someone that inspires you from your scene that you see making moves to such a tragic, tragic way of going out. I can't even, I can't even start to imagine like what that feels like, you know? And just overall together, man, like I personally am sick of just the violence that we keep seeing going on and like rap, and rap man, like not even from the rappers themselves, but from the people who look from the outside to the inside and envy these rappers, right? Like I saw or heard someone this week referencing the Pop Smoke situation say it can be a million people that love you, it only takes one person to hate you to completely ruin your life or ruin everything that goes around you. And that statement has never been sure then I think just the celebrities and the personalities that come from the music industry. Because a lot of these rappers are envied by people who think that it's easy because of how they're looking at it from the outside and don't have a 10th of the work ethic that some of these artists who are on top have to have in order to get to the business that they are. So then you run to these people who see that, they look at that what's going on and then they think to themselves like I want that. Why does he have that and I don't have it? And I just hate the mentality that the culture breeds around that. Like I said, not directly because of the culture but just people who seem to pay attention to the culture who think it's as easy as the internet makes it seem like it is who just feel like they can take things from these people because they don't understand why they don't have these things. I know this is definitely gonna be another case that we're all gonna be watching just as more details get reported on it as we kind of start to find out the answers and see what exactly happened in this situation. I'll make sure to update you guys on it. But like I said, I just wanted to go ahead and get the sad news out of the way. So R.P. Pop Smoke, man, I just, like Lily just last week gave his music a chance. Like the mixtape he had just put out, which was fire, man. Like I decided that like, yo, let me start hating on these new New York rappers. Let me check them out. I gave like him 504, 504 and all those upcoming New York rappers like a listen through man. And like I came out of it with like, Pop Smoke is hard, but like, I don't know where I've been. I don't know where I was sleep, but he was hard, man. So like, I'm sad that I got on the fan train late and I'm just sad about its overall thing, man. So R.P. Pop Smoke, man, you will be missed, man. Your fans miss you. And let's all just try to like learn from this situation. Whatever you take from this situation, just make sure that you learn something from this. That's how I try to always come out of these things. So moving on to other news. It looks like Nipsey Hustle's alleged killer is finally set to go to trial or will finally be set to go to trial. So on Wednesday, the New York Daily News reported that Eric Holder, who is the alleged murder of Nipsey Hustle, his murder trial is expected to begin in late March and could be completed sometime in the April. So we're pretty much looking at this point as like, they're saying alleged killer, but there are enough witnesses around who pretty much are like, he did it. Based on the comments from the judge that I'm reading here in this article, it looks like they're going to try to do their best to make this a speedy trial. Because like I said, looking at it from their point, they probably feel like they have enough evidence to be like, yo, it's him, he did it. So the judge or judge, Robert Perry, reportedly said he hoped to get the trial done by April 14th. So they're looking at trying to make it like a two to three week trial if they possibly can, which is a pretty fast trial. So Mr. Holder, this is what the judge says. So Mr. Holder, as you know, this is an important case and a serious case. These cases take time to get ready for trial. You have the right to a speedy trial. Are you okay that we continue this case and you come back on March 18th and we do our best to start your trial within 30 days? Are you okay with that? And then Eric Holder replied, yes. So just another tragic incident that we saw take place in the rap community that hopefully is going to get resolved pretty soon. Out of all of these things, man, like just outside of just getting justice for the murder victims and, you know, convicting the killers who are still alive, I think that out of everything, like we want answers, right? Like we just want to know like why, why did you do it? What drove you to do it? What pushed you in that moment to feel like this was the right thing to do to take somebody away from these communities that people clearly love and people clearly looked up to, right? So yeah, just wanted to report on that. Like I said, hopefully we get some answers around the Nipsey Hustle trial after this. So like I said, it's kicking off around March. We all know what's up around mid-April. So just stay tuned for that. So moving on to more lighthearted news because I don't want you guys to leave this episode like just super sad. So moving on to lighthearted news, Boosie is not happy with Planet Fitness more specifically the Planet Fitness in Jonesboro, which makes me think, why is Boosie in Jonesboro? Does he live in Atlanta? Does he live in Jonesboro? I don't know, whatever. So the rapper took to his Instagram to post a video of him blasting the establishment for not allowing him and his friends into the gym to use it due to comments that he made on Instagram a few days ago about Dwayne Wade and his child. Now, if you don't know what's going on there, go look it up, submit it into videos about it, but basically Boosie made comments letting the world know that he himself was not happy with the decision of Dwayne Wade allowing his child to identify as a girl. So the manager of the Planet Fitness in Riverdale or in Jonesboro is a gay man and he did not take kindly to the comments that Boosie made. Thus he did not let him into the establishment. So the post that Boosie put on his Instagram and it's actually still on his Instagram. So that's how I know he's like really mad about this shit. The video pretty much said, oh, what's Boosie saying? Do not go to Planet Fitness. They're racist, they're haters. They just put me out Planet Fitness because of what I said about Dwayne Wade's son. They champion him from Dwayne Wade's son so don't go to Planet Fitness no more. Nobody goes to the Planet Fitness, they got roaches in that bitch. In the comments, he continues to rant by saying manager who was gay refused to let me in Planet Fitness because of my past actions on social media about gender, et cetera. Do not support Planet Fitness, Highway 138 Jonesboro Road. They're racist, they have roaches and they shower water, don't get hot. Get out your feelings, little bitch. Hashtag Roach Fitness five times. Now, I saw a lot of comments about this just regarding like, oh, Boosie has free speech. Boosie has free speech. They can't ban him out of establishment. And yes, you're right. I do believe that everyone has the right to say what they want to say, no matter how ignorant or crazy it may be. As long as there is a place in openness for communication and dialogue for both sides to kind of talk about it so that hopefully something is resolved or at the very least, you learn something about the other's viewpoint, right? That's how I feel about free speech. That's what I feel about it. Now, on the other hand, Planet Fitness is a business. Businesses do have the right to keep people out that they do not want in the establishment and I can understand what the manager is coming from. If you are on social media just attacking like my lifestyle and things that I believe in, because we saw the comments or for those of us who saw the comments, it's not like Boosie was saying these things and like the nicest, most PC way, right? He was going hard with just the way that he was putting out there. So if I'm a person and you're attacking my lifestyle and you're attacking something I really, really, really believe in, just in the manner that you're doing or attacking a group of people that I identify with and then I see you in my establishment, like, yeah, I'm not about to be cordial with you, but I'm like, no, get out of here, bro. It don't work that way. So I do see both sides. Yes, Boosie does have the right to say what he said and feel how he feels about the matter, just like that manager also has the right to feel the way that they feel about the situation. Free speech comes with consequences. People are, at least I feel like people have the right to respond in a manner in which they feel as long as that manner does not result in them putting their hands on someone physically or murdering someone. So that's how I feel about it. But I just want to say, first off, I don't know why Boosie's going to the Planet Fitness in Jonesboro. Like if he's living in Atlanta, there's a thousand better Planet Fitnesses than the one in Jonesboro. And if he just lives in Jonesboro, like Riverdale or something, but you'll be okay. It's like another Planet Fitness, like 20 minutes north of that, bro. Like it'll be straight. Like I said, Boosie's really mad about this, man. The video's still in his channel, so if you have not seen it, just go check it out. Like go look at that video. Now, other news, just before we even get into the topic, check this out first. What you just heard is actually an artificial intelligence creative version of a Travis Scott song, which was made by a digital agency called Space 150. Now they thought it would be fun to conduct an experiment and try to model Travis Scott's sonics and vocal styles using artificial intelligence to try to recreate this song. So everything that we heard from the lyrics to the music, the lyrics to the song, the lyrics to the song, the lyrics to the song, the lyrics to the song, the lyrics to the song, the lyrics to the melody was created by an artificial intelligence program. It was made by a computer. So the executive director of Space 150, Ned Lampert, told at week, we were sort of fascinated with like, what if we tried to make a song? Like an actual good song by using AI and basically creative directing AI. He said that the agency chose Travis Scott because he is such a unique artist with a unique style that they thought it would be like a challenge to try to recreate Travis Scott. It's pretty much the result of that experiment. So what's interesting about this is that on the one hand, this is really cool. Like I'm personally interested in technology and like the advancements that we're making with it and just some of the just worlds of possibilities that like shit like this opens up. On the other hand, on the second hand, my music industry side flags are ringing or flags are waving, bells are ringing, shit is going off. Because the way I look at this is like, that song is not terrible, right? Like it's not great. It's not amazing by any short, by any stretch of imagination, but it's not the worst thing I've ever heard. So what I'm hearing when I hear that is that we are probably like two to three years out from AI being able to create an actual good song. So what I hear from that is that if I am a person in the music industry who can create melodies, who can create lyrics, who can potentially create a hit song just off of my computer, why am I going to spend money to hire expensive songwriters? Why am I going to spend money to hire expensive producers? Why might I even take the time out of my day to invest my money into an artist to try to pop them off when I could control the whole operation from a computer, from a laptop, right? And that's not so far off. There's an AI label based out of L.A. called SNAFU, SNAFU Records. And like their whole thing is creating AI artists. Like they're trying to be the next generation of label just computer artificially intelligent artists. And like I said, what we are now, I don't think that's going to happen. But it's not crazy to think that in two to three years we will hear an actual decent song from something like this. And then in three to five years, they may even get it down to the point where the AI can emulate all aspects of an artist. Like imagine an AI artist that can do interviews, that can interact on social media, that can make good songs because they have the algorithm in place. That's not too far out. Like that, it sounds like some Twilight Zone shit, but it sounds like some shit is going to happen in the next like three to five years. So on one hand, really, really, really cool experiment. This is dope. But on the other hand, like artists man, not only are y'all competing with mega stars, not only y'all competing with artists around you, artists on the internet, now you have to compete with an actual computer program. And I know we like to think that creativity can't be copied, it can't be duplicated. There are certain magics of an artist that can't be recreated by a computer program. But if they can recreate enough of it, best believe they're gonna try to make it work and run with it. If they can get like 90% of the charm and essence of an artist, they're gonna run with it, bro. Like, trust me. So pay attention to this type of stuff. Cause this type of stuff is the stuff that is going on in the back end music industry that we don't think about cause we're like arguing about like royalty splits and streaming payouts. And it'd be people like, this is trying to take the whole artist's side of it away. Well, I wouldn't even say take it away. They're probably trying to like, you know, all most of these tech companies start out doing something for the good of something. Like they want to enhance creativity or add to creativity. But the money, hungry powers that be are gonna look at this shit like, oh, I ain't gotta sign an artist for 10 mil. I can just get this program for a couple of thousand and just crank them out. Yeah, we in there. So as an interest to this goes, let me know what you think about this in the comment section below. Do you think AI artists would be able to compete with real artists pretty soon? Or do you think this is something that won't ever really work out? Like, how do you feel? Timer is about to be out here rapping, bro. That's what it seems like. And lastly, as far as new music that dropped today, NBA young boy dropped the album, still flexing, still repping. Trippy Red dropped a love letter to you for the deluxe edition. Royce the Five-Nine dropped the allegory album. Cowboy dropped his live long the Kings or long live the Kings EP. And Kyle dropped the single Yes, featuring K-Camp and Rich the Kid, which I have to say out of this whole list of everything I heard, that song surprised me the most. Like, I never thought in a hundred years that I would hear a K-Camp and a Rich the Kid and a Kyle song. I wouldn't even have thought they were running in the same circles or know who each other are. But it was actually a pretty good song. Like, I fuck with it. Like, it was the first thing I checked out because I was like, Kyle, Rich the Kid and K-Camp, what? So yeah, check those out. And if you know about anything else that you think I should be up on, drop them in the comment section below or feel free to hit me up on Instagram and Twitter. I'm always looking to the things that you guys are listening to. Put me on game, man. Like y'all be bragging about how y'all got this immaculate music taste and you be selfish with the shit, man. Share the music love with Kory, man. Kory likes new music too. Other than that, if you liked this video, please like, share and subscribe. Once again, hit me up on Instagram or Twitter at Kory The Savory. I'll put those links in the description below. Other than that, I will see y'all guys next week. Peace.