Spongebob

Spongebob rapping is the YouTube rabbit hole you need to dive into

A producer from Maine is using AI to make SpongeBob content that you just can’t look away from.

The inane sprit behind some of YouTube’s earliest and most bizarre viral videos (i.e. Youtube Poop) is still very much alive. Don’t take our word for it, though — we’ve got the SpongeBob receipts to prove it.

🎥: TheFactory via YouTube

Ian Bennett, the mind behind TheFactory, a YouTube channel that mixes and matches popular songs with other artists’ work, has been spitting out SpongeBob rap parodies based on the success of a video featuring our favorite sea-dwelling sponge rapping the Baby Keem and Kendrick Lamar standout, “Range Brothers”.

🎥: TheFactory via YouTube

SpongeBob and company performing “Off the Grid” at Mercedes-Benz Arena in Atlanta.TheFactory
The song that started it all. TheFactory

The phenomenon first took after someone clipped Bennett’s video and uploaded it to Twitter.

After garnering over a million views within a day, it was posted on TikTok, amassing an even higher view count.

“The audio is made mainly using Uberduck.ai, which is essentially a speech generator using an AI model called Tacotron 2, [and] manually trained to recreate a bunch of voices. Using reference tracks, I give it the lyrics and it spits out vocal files that I drag into a DAW and mix and master over an instrumental that I either recreate myself or split using other AI like lalal.ai, phonicmind, and music rebalance.”

Ian Bennett on the process

TheFactory
Bikini Bottom has taken over LA. TheFactory

While Bennett is currently one of the only people making videos in this vein, channels like SpongeDubs are also making parody raps based on the iconic cartoon. SpongeDubs’ process differs slightly — taking clips of SpongeBob speaking from the actual show and stringing them together, adjusting the pitch, and then stretching the clips by hand.

🎥: SpongeDubs via YouTube

SpongeDubs
Mr. Krabs is floating on this beat right now.TheFactory

If you want to see more of SpongeBob spitting fire, I’d recommend starting with this video, before moving on to here. Watch out though, because once you hear these in voice of a Bikini Bottom dweller, there’s no going back.

TheFactory

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