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Rappers Watch Out: New Machine-Learning Algorithm Writes Rap Lyrics Like a Pro

| May 23, 2015 10:38 PM EDT

Inspectah Deck and Rakim

The latest victims of machine-learning algorithms -- or artificial intelligence -- are rappers and rap.

Rapping is just sing-song rhyme spun to a simple beat. That's what makes it easy prey for a new machine-learning algorithm developed by researchers at the University of Aalto in Finland.

Researcher Eric Malmi and his colleagues developed a machine-learning algorithm named "Deep Beat" to analyze a sequence of lines from rap lyrics and then write its own lyrics.

Deep Beat takes individual lines from existing rap songs and searches through its rap song database for another line on the same topic that best rhymes. It then repeats this process for the next line and it goes on from there, said Technology Review.

"An 82% accuracy was achieved for separating the true next line from a randomly chosen line," said Malmi.

To train Deep Beat, the Finns assembled a database of over 10,000 songs from over 100 rap artists.

This method also allowed the researchers to rank the complexity of lyrics to come up with a "rhyming density", or the average of all the longest sequences in the lyrics.

This had the added benefit of allowing them to rank all the rap artists in their database according to their rhyming density.

The three top rappers by this metric are Inspectah Deck (or Jason Hunter, the American rapper famous for his intricate lyrics); Rakim (or William Michael Griffin, Jr., an American ranked  Number 4 on MTV's list of the Greatest MCs of All Time in 2006) and Redrama (a Finnish rapper named Lasse Mellberg  who won the English-language Finnish championship of rapping in 2001).

Researchers said rhyming density is an interesting measure of a rapper's rhyming skill and one they'll use to compare their automated raps with human generated ones.

Here's one of Deep Beat's first rap love songs:

For a chance at romance I would love to enhance

But everything I love has turned to a tedious task

One day we gonna have to leave our love in the past

I love my fans but no one ever puts a grasp

I love you momma I love my momma - I love you momma

And I would love to have a thing like you on my team you take care

I love it when it's sunny Sonny girl you could be my Cher

I'm in a love affair I can't share it ain't fair

Haha I'm just playin' ladies you know I love you.

I know my love is true and I know you love me too

Girl I'm down for whatever cause my love is true

This one goes to my man old dirty one love we be swigging brew

My brother I love you Be encouraged man And just know

When you done let me know cause my love make you be like WHOA

If I can't do it for the love then do it I won't

All I know is I love you too much to walk away though

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