AI: Virtual Romanian singer goes viral but sparks criticism

Lolita Cercel, who is completely fake, spoke to DW in a video message – Image: Tom

In Romania, an AI-generated singer inspired by poems about the Roma community has become an overnight success. But critics say her creator is monetizing the woes of a marginalized group without involving its members.

Millions of Romanians are listening to Lolita Cercel, a singer with a piercing gaze who highlights the plight of those on the margins of society. Her videos have garnered millions of views on social media. But Cercel does not exist in reality.

She was generated entirely by AI. Cercel, which means “earring” in Romanian, is the title of the virtual singer’s first song and became her last name. Every aspect of Lolita Cercel, from her face to her voice, was created by a Romanian graphic designer who wants to remain anonymous and goes only by the name “Tom.”

Tom has described his creation’s style of music as “Balkan trip-hop.” But to many listeners, it sounds very much like Romanian manele, a genre of pop folk music that has Ottoman influences and can be compared to the turbo-folk of former Yugoslavia. In Romania, the music is often associated with the Roma community, though it has long become mainstream.

Inspired by a 1941 poetry collection

Tom used to rap when he was at school and he then studied to be a film director without great success. Years later, he came across a 1941 collection of poems called “Cantece tiganesti” by the Romanian poet Miron Radu Paraschivescu. Today, many members of the Roma community consider the title, which translates as “Gypsy Songs,” as offensive.

The book was published during World War II, when Europe’s Roma community was experiencing one of the worst periods in its history. Tens of thousands were murdered and deported by the Nazis and their Romanian allies in the Romanian capital Bucharest.

Paraschivescu, who was not a member of the community, wrote sympathetically about Romani people. However, he was an outsider, writing poetry, not a chronicler of a threatened community.

But it was his texts that inspired Tom to try his hand at music again. And he was able to do so thanks to new technical possibilities. “Lolita was created when my curiosity and the tools at my disposal came to a point that I could create the sound I wanted,” he said.

He worked on his character for four months and says that he was inspired by people living in precarious circumstances in his hometown in eastern Romania as well as in the southern European periphery. He reportedly gathered inspiration during his evening walks with his dog — “unfiltered, grammatically imperfect, vivid words.”

Tom, who wishes to remain anonymous, created Lolita Cercel – Image: Cristian Ștefănescu/DW

‘If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.’

Tom claims that he made it clear from the start that Lolita Cercel was an AI-generated character. However, he insists that he did not create a Roma character. He says that his character is “simply a woman from the Balkans.”

For many in the Roma community, this is not the point.

Alex Stan from the non-governmental Budapest-based Roma Education Fund says there is something problematic about Lolita Cercel. He says that her name, look, musical style and references to spiritual practices common in Romani culture come together to form a clear pattern: “If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck,” the Roma human rights activist told DW. He said Tom’s project was disingenuous because Lolita Cercel could not relate to the “highly complex experiences of a Romani woman” and nor could her creator.

Alexandra Fin, a young Roma activist from the northwestern city of Cluj, was one of the first to publicly criticize the project as an “instrumentalization of Roma culture.” She said that while actual Roma artists were often devalued, a “virtualized, racialized and dehumanized Roma identity” had suddenly found success. “The difference is racism,” she said with bitter irony.

Experience is an ‘ingredient, not the whole recipe’

Tom rejects the criticism, saying art does not have to be based on personal experience. In a video message produced for DW, Lolita Cercel defends herself: “An author doesn’t have to be a murderer to write a compelling crime novel; a deaf composer can create symphonies.” Experience is “an ingredient, not the whole recipe.”

Alex Stan is not convinced: “It’s particularly live performance that makes Romani music so special,” he said. “It’s a completely different experience from a studio recording, let alone an AI-generated product.”

In addition, he said, there are plenty of real voices that want to be heard: “We have many Roma artists who want to make a name for themselves.”

Human rights activist Alex Stan is not convinced by the Lolita Cercel project – Image: Cristian Ștefănescu/DW

The problem is structural, he said: while a fictional character could go viral, many real artists remained invisible, held back by barriers in the music industry. “It gives the impression that there is a platform for Romani music — but without Romani people.”

Stan cited the Bosnian musician Goran Bregovic, who achieved international success with music influenced by Romani culture, as a counterexample. His success came after years of collaboration with Romani musicians, he explained. The German producer Stefan Hantel, known in the music industry by his stage name Shantel, also worked with real musicians — including some from Romania — to create his Balkan pop, he pointed out. Tom, on the other hand, left this process to an algorithm, said Stan.

For the Romanian musician Cristian Stefanescu, who has the stage name “Electric Brother,” Lolita is more interesting than much of what can be heard on commercial radio. But he acknowledges that “if she were a real singer with this material, she would probably have been rejected. Because she’s different. And the industry doesn’t want anything else.”

Tom does not share widespread concern and is continuing to work on Lolita Cercel’s world, as well as new characters and potential partnerships. For him, AI means that creativity can be democratized. But for his critics, it is a tool of exploitation that has allowed him to appropriate the stories of a minority group, of which he is not a member, and monetize them without involving anybody from the Roma community.

Whether she’s being poetic or ironic, Lolita Cercel sums up the contradiction: “When you listen to my music and feel something, you’re not thinking of me, but of yourself. I’m just a pretext.”

DW.com/NAN 11 April 26

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