Cap1talA: “AI Can’t Out-Rap Me”

Cap1talA talks about growing up between Kent and London, finding his voice through hip hop, and why AI can’t out-rap human experience.

Kent-born rapper Cap1talA has been carving his own sound—a mix of hip hop, soul, and jazz steeped in ambition and raw honesty. His music captures the realities of growing up without privilege, transforming hunger into motivation. In this conversation with Jilili, he talks about his come-up, what drives him to keep creating, and why no machine can touch the human side of hip hop.

How would you describe your music?

Yeah, my music is—I’d say it’s just a fusion of all the sounds that I’ve grown up with, whether it’s indie music, mainly, you know, hip hop, which has inspired all my songs in some way, shape, or form—or even jazz or soul music—and kind of blending them together to tell my own stories that I’ve experienced or been through throughout my years or my childhood.

And just growing up in Kent and London, my more recent stuff has kind of had a theme of hunger and what it feels like—not a hunger for food, but more of a hunger for greatness and achieving things that you want to achieve. A hunger for, like, growing up in a not-privileged area or not-privileged parents or privileged siblings and kind of always having a hunger to make it somewhere that’s not necessarily privileged, but a place where you’re comfortable and not having to deal with financial stress—which is all I’ve grown up with.

My last mixtape, We Got Food at Home, was kind of talking about things like that. And my new project that’s coming up is called Grace for the Hungry, which is kind of like a sequel to that. So with the recent tracks, I kind of talk and dive in more about my upbringing and what I strive towards—what I want to gain in my life and what I really want in life, from what I want for my family and my friends, and the opportunities we have now that we’re taking advantage of.

That kind of inspires me in the music itself, because when I make the music, it feels ambitious—the things I talk about and the things that I’ve seen my mum go through and my family go through, struggling. It’s kind of like a push for me to use all of that and inspire myself to reach beyond that, and certain struggles that I’ve seen with friends and family and all of that, and trying to go beyond so we don’t have to deal with that when we’re older. Especially in the city that we all live in, which is London, which is, you know, they don’t care for people who are essentially struggling or poor.

So that’s kind of what inspires me. It’s just hearing music that talks about that. And a lot of other things inspire me too, like a lot of artists—90s hip hop, the golden era of hip hop. Especially East Coast hip hop music. They’re all from a city and they all talk about their reality and struggle, and they use it to empower themselves.

When did you start making music, and how did you get into it?

Cap1talA: I started making music in 2020—no, 2019—when my brethren, I had a couple guys in my class, not class actually, in my year group. And this would have been sixth form, year 12. Well, to be honest with you, I started making music before that. I started writing music a few years before that.

I got into making music through listening to Tyler, the Creator and Odd Future, the LA rap group, for those who don’t know. And they were like young teenagers when they were dropping all their music. I was like the same age when they had just blown up and came out into the music scene. I kind of got inspired by the stuff they were talking about and how they were saying it—and not giving a fuck about what they say and what they do.

As a kid or a teenager, you kind of relate to that or want to be like that. So I started writing music at the age of fifteen to seventeen. And then at seventeen, when I was in sixth form, I met my brethren. They all were learning how to produce on FL Studio on their MacBooks and laptops during study periods. Instead of actually studying, they were producing beats.

So when they were producing beats, I was writing over them, and I was also learning how to produce what they were producing. So I downloaded FL Studio. As the years went by, we got to COVID, and during lockdown, there’s not much to do. So I kind of got into a groove of like, all right, let me take what I’ve learned from them and just in solidarity, learning and trying to expand my skills in this music stuff.

I started making music. The more music I listened to that summer, I remember listening to so much stuff—hip hop from the West Coast scene, a lot of 90s hip hop from the East Coast. I was just like, yeah, I love it. I loved the productions and how they’re rapping—it’s poetic, you know, it’s cool. So then I did all of that during lockdown, released my own mixtape, and yeah, that’s kind of when everything started to click in my head.

What do you think about AI in music?

Cap1talA: I think AI is inevitable. It was always going to happen. I don’t really—it’s not something I would use ever. It’s not something I would really listen to if there’s an AI artist.

You see cases where AI is being used in music now, like even with Lo-Fi music, or, you know, Timbaland having his own AI artist to produce and release music. And a lot of people aren’t really fucking with it, especially in the music industry and the music scene.

But, like, you know, it’s a strong opinion. I think it’s looked down upon for obvious reasons. People don’t really like the idea of listening to something that’s not by a human—which, when it comes to something creative, I can hear and relate to people who have that type of opinion.

But I don’t necessarily think it’s the worst thing or the end of music creativity. I think everything comes out when it’s supposed to come out. AI is here to stay—it’s not going anywhere. So if you don’t like it, it’s cool. You don’t have to cry about it, just keep it pushing. I keep it pushing with my music.

I don’t think AI can out-rap me. I don’t think AI will ever get to a point where people hear it and prefer that AI music over an artist and an actual human being. So my opinion is, I wouldn’t personally use it or listen to it, but it’s cool.

I think people are scared of it because they think AI might start doing their own work. But at that point, it’s just human evolution. Would you do different now? That’s not standing out. That’s something a computer can’t do. It’s just going to reform the music community and the scene a bit. Not in a bad way—reform it in a way that’ll push artists to experiment and make something that’s fresh.

What do you think the biggest challenges with AI are?

Cap1talA: I don’t know if there are big challenges to a degree where it’s enough to really take away from someone who’s not a computer or artificial intelligence. I think there shouldn’t be a challenge. I don’t think there’s a challenge in AI. I don’t believe there should be.

If you’re making music as a human, as an actual being, there shouldn’t be a challenge. You shouldn’t be challenged by AI. I don’t think that’s even a thing. It’s the same with AI art. I don’t think you should be challenged by AI art if you’re a painter and you’re painting on a canvas, because everyone’s you—everyone’s different, everyone’s unique, right?

So if you’re staying true to yourself and bringing out your own individuality in your work, you shouldn’t feel challenged because you’re being yourself. If you do feel challenged, it shouldn’t be in a negative way. It should drive you to outdo the next man or outdo that AI drawing or AI song.

I feel like, as a whole, it might challenge the industry. Maybe more AI artists will drop music and people might start listening to that more than they do to if I dropped a song—but I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

And if it did happen, then it’s like, all right, cool. Like I said before, how do you move on from this and make something more unique than what the AI has done?

Another thing I’ll add onto that is, I guess the challenges with AI are about what it’s taking. Who’s it taking from? What database is it using? Whose lyrics is it grabbing inspiration from—or stealing from?

At the end of the day, it’s a database, and it scans the web and takes melodies and ideas. That’s everyone’s big issue with it. But at the same time, humans do that too. So I think everyone’s challenge is kind of based on the idea of AI stealing.

It’s a big thing. We’ll find out soon enough what regulations they’ll have. Humans take inspiration from songs and play it into their own. So why can’t a computer do that? Who are we to say AI can’t produce this because it’s taken from this song?

I feel like it depends how close it is. Everyone’s challenge is that it’s theft, it’s stealing. Especially in hip hop culture—it’s like, hip hop and rap, the stuff I make, it’s Black music, essentially. Now you’re getting a computer doing that when it doesn’t have a human or cultural identity.

I think there’s a culture clash with AI producing certain genres. Why would we listen to a computer when it doesn’t have a relation to the culture? You know what I’m saying? And then people will think—if someone who’s Black is producing AI hip hop music—why not just do it yourself?

People see it as laziness. That’s the challenge within AI music, and that’s a challenge that makes sense to me. Depending on how you’re using AI, it’s like, why are you doing that? Why not do it? People probably would want to know why—as opposed to just putting it out.

Follow Cap1talA on Instagram and Spotify.

Artist images courtesy of NOTION and Culled.