AI-generated parody song about immigrants goes viral in Germany

Everything in the song – the music, the words, and the artwork – was generated using AI. But “Verknallt in einen Talahon” has now made the Top 50 in Germany.

The song is now No. 48 in Germany, the fourth-largest music market in the world. Released less than a month ago, it has 3.5 million streams on Spotify and is now No. 3 on its global viral chart.

The song’s creator, Josua Waghubinger, who goes by the name Butterbro, told Die Klangküche, a German music production podcast, that he made the song’s chorus by feeding his own lyrics into Udio, a generative AI tool that can generate vocals and instrumentals from text prompts.

After Waghubinger saw that the chorus had gained enough attention on TikTok, he also used the music tool and called it all a creative project.

However, the German media isn’t only discussing the phenomenon of an AI-generated song entering the cards – it’s also about the lyrics.

The song’s title translates from German as “In Love with a Talahon,” referencing an Arabic expression “taeal huna.” It means “come here” but is now more often used in Germany to describe groups of young men with immigrant backgrounds.

The object of the song’s protagonist wears “a Louis belt, a Gucci bag, and Air Max trainers.” She also ponders about her lover: “He’s as sweet as baklava.”

Waghubinger himself said on the aforementioned podcast that he didn’t think about discriminating against other cultures with his song and mostly tried to parody overt macho behavior. Mostly, he simply wanted the track to go viral on social media.

Then again, “talahon” is already firmly established as an insult among young Germans and Austrians against migrants, Felicia Aghaye, a writer for the music magazine Diffus, told The Guardian. Far-right groups use the term to stoke Islamophobia and xenophobia.

Music producers are increasingly using AI to generate vocals in the style of well-known singers. In 2023, the Beatles released Now and Then, a track that used AI to extrapolate John Lennon’s vocals.

The problem is that the advent of AI-generated music has presented a significant challenge for music streaming platforms. AI technology, providing innovative means of producing music, has inadvertently facilitated a wave of fake and unlicensed content, posing legal, ethical, and financial dilemmas.

AI music generation techniques can scrape melodies and lyrics from copyrighted songs, creating derivative works without explicit permission from the original copyright holders.