Photo Credit: Mikey “Eyedea” Larsen by FifthLegend / CC by 2.0
The late Minnesota rapper Eyedea has a new LP, thanks to AI-cloned vocals and handwritten lyrics preserved by the artist’s mom.
A new 14-song collection, 15-Year-Old Shit Talking, recreating the voice of late underground rapper Eyedea, is out now via most streaming platforms and on CD through Bandcamp. But it’s been a long road to extend the artist’s legacy and couldn’t have been done without a combination of handwritten lyrics, old recordings, and AI-cloned vocals. The project aims to recreate the teenage rap-battle energy that made the late Saint Paul rapper a cult figure.
The album grew from family archives rather than a conventional studio session. Kathy Larsen Averill, mother of Mikey “Eyedea” Larsen, kept her son’s old material and worked with local veteran producers to turn it into a finished record.
Notably, the music is not entirely AI-made. Making the AI voice model work required other people to record placeholder vocals, including Averill herself and rappers such as Ecid and Brady O’Rourke. Producers supplied the beats and other instrumental parts without the use of AI, including DJ Willy Lose and Big Jess of Unknown Prophets.
It’s that mix of human production and cloned vocals that makes the release a reconstruction of the artist’s early voice and style, rather than a fully synthetic album.
“I think it’s as close to the real thing as we can get, and it’s pretty close,” said Willy, a longtime friend and collaborator of Eyedea’s. While he admitted he was skeptical at first, he changed his tune. “It’s what Kathy wanted, and I agreed to help her because that’s what Mikey would have wanted.”
Once they began working on the project and bringing Eyedea’s old handwritten lyrics to life, Willy said, “I knew it’s something Mikey would have wanted too.”
Eyedea was already a respected name in the Twin Cities’ underground rap battle scene well before his death in 2010. He built a reputation through battle-rapping, writing sharp lyrics, and working with other local talent in the scene. His influence has continued through posthumous releases and archival projects, but the latest release pushes the envelope of preservation. Modern AI tools help imagine what the rapper’s teenage material would have sounded like had he recorded it at the time.
While the project is certain to draw criticism for the use of AI, it also serves as an interesting creative tribute that uses technology to recreate an artist’s voice, recording lyrics written by the artist in his youth. But some will undoubtedly be unable or unwilling to look past the ethics of using AI to imitate a deceased artist.
Either way, the album reflects the broader music industry trend of AI voice cloning becoming powerful enough to remix, reframe, or revive artists’ work in ways that were impossible just a few short years ago.
