Boy George Launches AI Venture to Reclaim Rights to Legacy Hits

Boy George is challenging the traditional music industry power structure by launching a new venture, Artists Included, which utilizes artificial intelligence to help legacy artists regain control over their signature songs. The initiative aims to address a common industry grievance: artists often lose out on significant licensing revenue because they do not own the master recordings or publishing rights to their biggest hits. By using AI to create high-fidelity, modern re-recordings that mimic the artist’s younger vocal timbre, the company hopes to create new, artist-controlled assets that can compete for lucrative sync licensing deals.

The project’s debut features a new version of the Culture Club classic "Karma Chameleon." The track was produced by having George record a contemporary vocal performance, which was then processed through an AI model trained on his archival recordings from the 1980s. The result is a hybrid performance that captures the aesthetic of his 22-year-old voice while benefiting from his current artistic maturity. George and his manager, Paul Kemsley, emphasize that this process is distinct from unauthorized voice cloning, as it relies on the artist’s own new performance rather than generating synthetic vocals from scratch.

This move represents a significant pivot in the ongoing debate surrounding AI in music. While many artists and labels have spent the last two years fighting against generative AI and unauthorized voice models, George is attempting to frame the technology as a tool for empowerment. By positioning this as an evolution of the "Taylor’s Version" re-recording strategy, the team hopes to provide a blueprint for legacy acts to reclaim their financial and creative autonomy. If successful, this model could fundamentally change how aging artists monetize their catalogs, shifting the balance of power away from labels and back toward the original creators.