Aloe Blacc, Singer, Songwriter, Artivist; Co-founder and CEO, Major Inc. Interviewer: Andrew Nusca, FORTUNE
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00:00So let's talk about this new EP. I mean, it's a pair of EPs, but what inspired this 90s alt-rock thing?
00:06Man, you know, I was really inspired by a lot of different styles of music growing up.
00:12Of course in the 90s I was listening to a lot of hip-hop, but the rock of that era had an impression on me.
00:19And as I got older I started realizing that some of my predecessors in soul music
00:25had covered some of the greatest rock songs you could imagine.
00:30One that comes to mind is We Can Work It Out by Stevie Wonder, covering The Beatles.
00:34I thought, man, is anybody doing that nowadays?
00:36So I called up a friend of mine, Otis McDonald, a great musician and songwriter and producer.
00:44And we just went through a list of the best classic 90s songs that you could imagine, classic rock songs.
00:52And you got it, you got Song 2, and you got... what else was there?
00:56Oh, come on, Don't Speak, Lithium, Wonderwall, Under the Bridge, Everybody Hurts.
01:04It was an exercise in nostalgia, but also what we did was we took the songs and just transformed them,
01:11flipped them, made them something brand new.
01:14And so when I play them for my kids, and I play them back to back, they tend to prefer my version.
01:20But they don't know the history, so one day they'll understand.
01:25Amazing. Now look, we've been talking a lot about artificial intelligence at this conference, inevitably.
01:30That has affected music as well. There's a lot of hand-wringing about how it's going to affect the arts.
01:35How do you think about it as it pertains to your artistry?
01:39Yeah, well, a lot of friends have been hitting me up asking if I'm planning to use AI for music or if I'm engaging with it.
01:47I've tried all of the programs to see if they can help.
01:52At this point, I feel like what I do is a lot better. And maybe...
01:58But I say that with a grain of salt, because I can see that the tide will turn quickly.
02:06These programs are getting way smarter.
02:09And I think in music we've been using AI for quite a while, but just not necessarily in generative AI.
02:15We've been using a lot of algorithms in order to create drum loops or particular chord progressions.
02:22So it's not new, but we weren't calling it AI. We were just calling it the application or the plug-in within the DAW,
02:31which is the Digital Audio Workspace.
02:33So you see it as a tool, not so much as a risk of replacing your creativity.
02:38It's a tool. I don't think it's a risk of replacing creativity.
02:40Ultimately, I think everybody's going to have an opportunity to use it to enhance and amplify what they do.
02:47So at the end of the day, whoever makes the best story is going to win.
02:52Now I want to go right to the audience for questions in just a minute,
02:54but I want to ask you a little bit about Stand Together.
02:57This is an initiative you've been working with. Tell us about it.
03:00Stand Together is an organization that works with changemakers across the country
03:05to help them improve some of the country's worst issues,
03:10from economy to education to broken communities.
03:15And they're working in a way with me, where they're sponsoring an album.
03:20I get to write songs inspired by their mission, inspired by the mission of making America better,
03:25inspired by the mission of amplifying non-profit organizations that are doing the most amazing work on the ground.
03:31And I believe in what they're doing. They believe in what I'm doing.
03:33So we've come together to try to make this country a place where division isn't the norm,
03:41and try to get people to come together, even the most unlikely adversaries.
03:47If you can find one thing that you agree upon, that's where we stand together, that's where we work, that's where we move forward.
03:51Yeah, we might divide about the best 90s all rock song. I mean, there's that, you know.
03:56Let me come to the audience. Does anybody have a question about Aloe's music
04:00before we turn to biotech and totally change the subject?
04:04Yes, way over here. Wait for a mic, please. And then your name and affiliation.
04:11Hello, Aloe. I'm Alex Gross. I'm with Silicon Slopes Park City.
04:15I'm also founder of EasyPress.ai. We make AI content for small, medium-sized businesses.
04:21But you just said something that really resonated with me,
04:24which is that you talked about the power of telling the best story.
04:28Right, the best story will win. When you think about what the best story is,
04:34is it an A-B test to figure out what's performative, or is it about really just self-expression,
04:39and how do you see that changing in the future?
04:42Ultimately, it depends on everyone's perspective and intention within the art that they're creating.
04:48I like to tell the best story that's going to offer people an opportunity to be inspired,
04:57be motivated, and to seek to aspire to something great.
05:03Some folks just want money, so if they can tell the best story for that, that's easy.
05:07You come up with a simple song with a repetitive hook,
05:10with the same chord progression as everyone else, and you probably make money.
05:14But what I'm looking at, in terms of telling stories,
05:18I'm thinking about the greatest songwriters of all time, according to my ledger,
05:25Joni Mitchell's at the top, we're talking about Cat Stevens, and James Taylor,
05:31Billy Joel, and Paul Simon, Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder.
05:34This is the book of music that I'm listening to, to determine what is the best story.
05:44And I've kind of put AI up to the test to see if they can match a Joni Mitchell's both sides,
05:50or a Boxer, or something like that, and it's not there yet.
05:54It's a high bar. Thank you for that question.
05:56All right, let's switch to the biotech side of your life.
06:00So, Major, you're trying to make this alternative to vaccines
06:04and involve something called peptoids.
06:05So, for the non-scientists here, please explain to us
06:09what on earth is an alternative to vaccines, as it pertains to transmissible...
06:12It started as an alternative to vaccines, but with most companies you pivot until you make it.
06:18I had a bout with COVID, and I had been vaccinated and boosted,
06:23and I was looking for a host-directed prophylactic solution.
06:27And after reading paper upon paper upon paper,
06:30I happened upon this paper by Dr. Gomika Udagamasouria
06:35at the University of Houston School of Pharmacology,
06:38where he's talking about blocking interface of the virus and the cell receptor.
06:45And I thought, that's brilliant.
06:46Why can't we just keep the viruses from entering the cells?
06:49It stops replication, and then it'll just either get excreted
06:54or it'll degrade within your system.
06:57So, I contacted him, sponsored some research,
06:59and it turned out there was no money for COVID anymore.
07:04So, we ended up building this business
07:10in order to advance his concept around drug discovery.
07:15And so, beyond just vaccination,
07:18it's a drug discovery platform that is addressing his 25 years of research in oncology
07:24and the patents that he holds,
07:25addressing autoimmune dysfunction and immune dysregulation,
07:31and addressing infectious disease, like viruses.
07:34So, taking the model of his SARS-CoV-2 molecule
07:39and applying that concept to many other viruses.
07:43And so, you looked at all that and as you were doing your beach reading
07:47on transmissible disease,
07:49and you were like, my life isn't complicated enough,
07:52I'm going to start this whole other thing.
07:53How did this become an actual venture for you?
07:55So, I wasn't trying to start a business, it was philanthropy at first.
07:59And so, I reached out to the university and the professor,
08:03but then realized quickly that universities are risk-averse,
08:07and they're not necessarily going to prop up a company.
08:11They have divisions that are incubation divisions and tech innovation divisions,
08:17but it really takes an outsider to come in and actually help push.
08:22And when I realized that, and I recognized the amazing technology that Gomika has,
08:28I wanted to help.
08:31And I felt like the only way to really help was to start a company
08:35and use the resources and relationships that I have, the access that I have,
08:39to put him in the room.
08:40And so, I'm able to get him in front of top VCs, top scientists and regulators,
08:48which is not so easy for a professor who's got class load,
08:51a mortgage to pay to get his foot through college.
08:54And so, we're going to build this together and hopefully we'll save a lot of lives.
08:58Tell me a little bit, these are very different walks, right?
09:01Tell me a little bit about the similarities
09:04between your music life and your biotech life.
09:07Forgive me if I'm drawing too hard a distinction here.
09:09And tell me about the commonalities, because, you know,
09:11I don't think your music has regulators, but you tell me, you know?
09:15Music doesn't necessarily have regulators.
09:17I mean, ultimately, the audience is the regulator.
09:20You guys determine whether or not the song is viable.
09:23Actually, that's not true.
09:24I play the songs for my kids in the car on the way to school.
09:27And they're the first...
09:28The ultimate regulator.
09:29They are the first layer.
09:32But I would say, in the terms of creativity, you know,
09:35Gomika's working with... He's a chemical biologist.
09:38So, he's working with the periodical table.
09:41And I'm working with 12 notes.
09:43And so, we get to play in this world of creativity to see what we can do.
09:48When, you know, he's doing chemical synthesis,
09:52I'm in the studio doing musical synthesis.
09:55And we're trying to see what's going to make somebody feel better.
10:00I think there's some similarities there.
10:04But aside from that, it's pretty diverse, pretty different.
10:07Any surprises on the biotech side of things
10:09that you just never would have imagined running into in music?
10:12It's so hard.
10:13Business is hard.
10:15So, I thought I was a businessman because I had a publishing company,
10:18a touring company, a record company.
10:21And then I started biotech and I was like, that's not business.
10:25This is much different and the stakes are much higher.
10:29And it takes so many more people.
10:31You know, at the end of a movie when you watch a film
10:33and you see the credits rolling and you're like,
10:34when are these credits going to end?
10:36There's a million people on this film.
10:38That's starting a business.
10:39That's biotech.
10:42And making a song, I could wake up in the morning,
10:45come up with an idea and by the end of the night
10:47distribute it to eight billion people in the world.
10:49Yeah, that's amazing.
10:51It doesn't require the laundry list of everyone else to help.
10:57And those two are really diametrically opposed.
11:00I love the freedom I have in making music by myself.
11:04And I love collaborating as well,
11:06but it's really impossible to do business and biotech really by yourself.
11:11Yeah, yeah. Fascinating.
11:12It takes a team.
11:12It does.
11:13Let's go to the audience for another question.
11:15I saw one back here. Yes, please.
11:17Name and affiliation, please.
11:18Yeah, Venk Varadhan, co-founder and CEO of Nanoware,
11:21healthcare remote diagnostics company.
11:24Allo, first of all, thank you for everything you've given all of us
11:27with your songs throughout the career.
11:30You've been at this in seeing a lot of the economics
11:33of music and songwriting change over the years.
11:36I'm curious as to your anticipation of how it's going to continue
11:40to evolve in the future for the next gen of songwriters.
11:43Like we used to buy CDs and full albums
11:45and then we would just buy one song that we wanted from Apple Music
11:49and now teenagers are getting their parents to shell out 10 grand
11:52for a Taylor Swift concert, right?
11:53So like, what's the next step there
11:55and how do you think that's going to impact the next gen of songwriters?
11:58If I had the crystal ball,
12:01I would not be sitting here with you right now.
12:03But I would say things have changed dramatically because of streaming.
12:07I think Pandora's box is open and we won't ever be able to go back.
12:11I was hopeful that DSPs or service providers
12:15would be the conduit
12:20to the friction in the pay line.
12:25So rather than Spotify charging you $10 a month or whatever it is,
12:30it potentially could be Verizon, AT&T or Sprint
12:36charging you at the tap, like when you use your faucet or your light switch.
12:41That's hopeful for me because I think pay for play
12:45becomes a lot more easier for artists.
12:47Right now we're in a pool where the income that we get
12:52is dependent on the amount of streams that we make pro rata.
12:57So the biggest artists in the world are getting the lion's share.
13:00Everybody else gets their pro rata share
13:02based on all the money that goes into the pool from subscribers.
13:06I'd much rather live or die by the value of my song at the tap.
13:13Which is kind of the way it was in the past. I don't know if we're going back there.
13:15Where is it going in the future? Like I said, hard to say.
13:20Probably a lot more regional
13:24than massive global artists.
13:28And a lot more live and local live.
13:33Good stuff. Let's do one more question, if you don't mind.
13:37Anything?
13:41Amazing. I've got a question.
13:43Is there one? Fantastic. Thank you very much.
13:45Thank you for your music and the gift of listening to it for the past decade.
13:51My name is Nate.
13:53A question. We've seen a lot of AI that can emulate how artists sound.
13:59And so it seems like an AI track will come out
14:02and it sounds like something that Drake or The Weeknd
14:05or somebody else might have written and actually sung.
14:09Do you see that as, or what role do you see that playing in the future of music?
14:13Do you see a future in AI where perhaps an artist licenses their voice or their likeness
14:19to a song and then licenses an AI contract out
14:23for generating songs that sound like they sung it?
14:27Or do you feel like that industry is something that is just kind of like a fad
14:31or might fade away at some point?
14:33I think what you're touching on is possibility.
14:36I had a conversation early on with a company called Metaphysic AI
14:39and a company called Respeacher.
14:42They helped me to translate songs and sing them in Italian and Mandarin
14:48and Spanish and French.
14:52And I look like I'm actually singing the song in those languages
14:56and speaking with perfect dialect.
15:00I think that personally I would get involved in that kind of thing.
15:04I think as I get older, there's going to be an era of Aloe Blacc
15:09that ultimately is bankable.
15:12And that era I think I could probably continue to make money on for time in memoriam.
15:17I was friends with Bill Withers before he passed.
15:20And he stopped singing as he aged.
15:22And I always thought to myself, I'd love to hear what he would want to say
15:28as an older person.
15:30But I think for him, he just realized,
15:33this younger generation is not interested in what I have to say.
15:36My voice doesn't sound the same.
15:38So if I can put that in a time capsule and then distribute that,
15:43that would be, I think, the best use of AI.
15:47I'm all over it.