A St. Paul mother is using artificial intelligence to pull her late son's teenage rhymes out of old notebooks and back into the speakers, in a new record that sounds uncannily like the real thing.
The 14-track collection, titled “15-Year-Old [Expletive] Talking,” matches Mikey Larsen’s handwritten lyrics with non-AI beats and AI-generated vocals designed to mimic his teenage cadence. The project was released on the Crushkill label and is available on major streaming services and the artist’s Bandcamp page.
According to the Star Tribune, Larsen’s mother, Kathy Larsen Averill, bankrolled and guided the project after discovering fragile, fading lyric sheets and a stash of early tapes. “I wanted everyone else to hear what he wrote in his own voice,” she told the paper. She then pulled in some of Eyedea’s longtime collaborators, including local producers DJ Willy Lose and Big Jess, to help shape the tracks. Willy told the outlet he got “chills” when the cloned vocals started coming back sounding like Mikey.
Where The Tracks Came From
The record leans on handwritten lyrics from Larsen’s teen years along with early solo a cappella tapes and loose basement recording sessions in St. Paul as raw material for the vocal model. The album’s official Bandcamp listing shows 14 tracks and a Feb. 27 release date, and the set is also live on major streaming platforms. Physical CDs are being sold through the Crushkill and Bandcamp storefront.
How The AI Was Used
Per the Star Tribune, the team trained a voice model on archived recordings of Eyedea, then ran “dummy” vocal takes through the system to generate the final leads. Those guide vocals were sometimes delivered by Larsen Averill herself and sometimes by guest rappers.
The approach lines up with the type of singing-voice cloning tools described by developer Kits AI, which promotes instant voice cloning and vocal transformation for music production. Project members stress that the beats and instrumentals were produced without AI and that every lyric comes from Larsen’s original writing.
Reaction And Context
Reaction has been split down the middle. Some listeners are just glad to have anything that feels like new Eyedea material. Others argue that using AI to recreate a dead artist’s voice crosses an ethical line, a concern that shows up in user comments on sites like Album of the Year.
Eyedea’s outsized impact on the Twin Cities scene helps explain the strong feelings. He won national battles such as Scribble Jam and the HBO Blaze Battle and went on to record with the Rhymesayers collective. Rhymesayers continues to highlight Larsen’s influence on the local hip-hop landscape.
Where To Hear It
The record is up for both streaming and purchase. The official Bandcamp page offers digital downloads and a CD, while services such as Apple Music carry the full 14-track release. Bandcamp preorders and physical copies appear to ship through the Crushkill storefront.
For Larsen’s mother, the project is mainly about preserving and sharing her son’s words, and she has said she might assemble similar compilations from later notebooks. Whether fans ultimately embrace those plans or push back on the idea of an AI-assisted afterlife for artists, this release has already reignited debates about creativity, legacy and how far technology should go in reshaping music history.
