Hip hop icon Riky Rick was very influential to local youth who used his words as inspiration and his life as aspiration. Because of this, his death meant that we didn’t just lose a musical talent, but a person whose words uplifted everyone.

We needed to find a way to keep his voice alive. Reading his social media posts felt like reading lyrics to a song and this is where we found our solution. We used his social media posts in rap lyrics, and with the help of AI we gave his voice new life in a song titled “Stronger”.

In South Africa, mental illness is a taboo subject people find easy to engage in. This is due to cultural, traditional, and societal pressures. Especially when it comes to men. Not talking about mental illness is a major reason for us having one of the world’s highest suicide rates. A study by the University of Witwatersrand revealed that 75% of South Africans don’t seek help with mental illness because of the negative stigma attached to the disease.

In South Africa there are nearly 23 suicides a day, almost one every hour. The stigma around talking about mental illness is a major reason we have one of the world’s highest suicide rates. This stigma is felt more intensely by men.

While mental illness is not a subject many men find easy to engage in, Riky Rick, a local rapper, was a person whom many people could rely on for inspiration and guidance. Because Riky knew this, he was vocal about his own mental struggles. Unfortunately, Riky lost his battle with mental illness and took his life. We had to find a way for his voice to live on to continue his legacy of helping and uplifting people.

After struggling with depression, South African hip hop icon Riky Rick succumbed to his battle with mental illness and took his own life. Known for inspiring people with his words, Riky’s death meant that we didn’t just lose a massive musical talent, but a person whose words uplifted everyone around him.

Our goal was to find a way for his voice to live on and we found our solution in his social media posts. Reading through them felt like reading lyrics to a song. So, we used his social media posts and AI to create one last song from him titled “Stronger”. A song that keeps his message alive and continues to inspire people.

The University of Witwatersrand has published that 75% of South Africans won’t seek help with mental illness because of the negative stigma attached to the disease. Even with this horrifying stat there isn’t a lot of media that covers and speaks about mental illness. Our objective was to reach two audiences to spark a positive nationwide conversation on mental well-being. The millions of fans of the late rapper Riky Rick and the radio/media personalities, people who have a lot of say as to what the nationwide narrative should be. We brought the late rapper’s voice to life through AI and produced a song using his social posts as rap lyrics. With the help of Sony, Riky’s record label, we shared the song on all social platforms, radio stations, streaming platforms, and music television channels.

We first took the social posts of the late South African rapper, Riky Rick, and laid them down as rap lyrics over a beat made by his long-time collaborators, Ganja Beatz. We then cloned Riky’s voice with Re-speecher, a company that built and trained the AI clone of Riky for us. They did this using raw audio separates of his voice which we pulled from songs and interviews that he did over the years. The result is a track that sounds like Riky recorded it himself. The entire rap performance was created by AI. His words, his beat and his voice.

Because he was so intentional with his words, reading through his social media posts felt like reading lyrics to song he left for us to find. We had to bring his voice back to life and spread a message of hope to the many people still battling mental illness.

The re-emergence of Riky’s voice gripped the attention of the nation and sparked a nationwide mental well-being discussion. Mental illness moved from a taboo subject to the most talked about illness in South Africa.

· Negative sentiment around mental illness decreased by 39% during the campaign.

· The song was played on every major radio station racking up over 90 million rand in free radio play.

· 59 million overall reach in the first two weeks after launch.

· 12 million rands in earned PR.