Can digital avatars unlock a new career path for ‘behind-the-scenes’ songwriters? WeAreMetaMuse thinks so“Human heart, digital skin: that’s our motto,” says Kelvin Avon from his Hong Kong recording studio and creative hub. That tagline might sound like the pitch for some new sci-fi film, but Avon, a veteran music producer and artist manager, is actually describing the anatomy of Supa Soula – his very own custom-made pop star.
Supa Soula is the first in what Avon hopes will be a roster of digital artists signed to his ‘virtual’ record label, WeAreMetaMuse. His striking good looks and retro-futuristic dress sense were crafted in the 3D modelling software, Blender; his dance moves animated in Unreal Engine, a platform typically used for video game development and film production; and that ‘human heart’ is actually an amalgam of Avon himself and a tight-knit team of songwriters and musicians.
“We’ve known each other for close to 20 years and we have maybe 60 to 70 songs we’ve written together,” Avon says of the creative crew behind the project. “He’s a picture of all of us thrown into this one avatar. That’s where his name came from: he’s a digital super soul.”
Image: WeAreMetaMuse
Of course, the success of a music artist is often a team effort – whether that’s behind-the-scenes songwriters who pen the tunes, producers who shape the sound, or managers who build an artist into a ‘brand’. The crucial difference here, says Avon, is that everyone contributing to Supa Soula’s success, even the session musicians, gets a piece of the intellectual property.
“It’s a collective,” he points out. “We all own Supa Soula. So if we did, say, a brand deal then everyone would get paid. Now that streaming royalties have dried up, this gives behind-the-scenes creators a revenue stream that we didn’t have before.”
The original motivation for all this, says Avon, was simple frustration. “I’ve been in the business now for close to 25 years as a producer, artist manager, and mix engineer. What I found with a lot of the projects was that everything is at the whim of the artist.”
Getting someone signed, assembling a team, working for years to build some momentum, only for the artist to decide they wanted a different career, to raise a family, or to change management. “It seemed to happen more often than not,” Avon reflects. “I spoke to a lot of the producers and songwriters I collaborated with and we all had very similar stories.
“We’re artists ourselves,” Avon continues. “We’re creative. We make music, we just don’t go to the front of the stage. What we’re doing now is releasing music we’ve written that, for whatever reason, didn’t get picked up. Maybe it wasn’t on-trend, not commercial enough, didn’t fit the artist but actually I think a lot of this is the best stuff I’ve done. Without Supa Soula, these songs would never see the light of day.”
With an extensive catalog of unreleased material to draw from, finding the right songs to re-arrange and record for Supa Soula’s debut was the easy part. Perfecting the look, style, and movements of the avatar was a bigger challenge.
Image: WeAreMetaMuse
“We had to think: ‘How does he look? What race is he? Is he tall? Skinny or muscly? How does he dance? What outfits can we put him in?” Avon, who models and animates the avatar, describes a detailed production that took the character from fantasy to digital fact. And while he says generative AI was used for some of the visual ideation and early prototyping, he makes it very clear that all the music and the animation was done by hand.
“People want real artistry,” emphasises Avon. “Even when you’re seeing a digital avatar, people want a human to be behind it. So, the movement you see in the music videos is a human dancing in a motion capture suit. The guitars are real. The singing is real. The production is real.”
With an eight song EP and a series of accompanying music videos still in the works for Supa Soula, Avon is already looking to “grow the family”. Mei Mei, a female avatar aimed at appealing to the Chinese music markets, is the next phase. “I wrote for a lot of Chinese artists,” Avon says. “So, again, the songs are coming from my old demos, but we’re also bringing in a local producer and working with a Mandarin singer and with Mandarin musicians.”
Catchy songs and engaging videos are all well and good – but the fan interaction is also core to a pop star’s appeal. Asked how listeners can engage with these avatars beyond Spotify or YouTube, Avon has a ready answer.
Image: WeAreMetaMuse
“We’re thinking of gamification more than personal interaction,” Avon offers. “It’s possible to do something similar to the old-style ‘meet and greet’ but I think you’d lose a bit of the magic there. I think we need to gamify the interaction with the fans and, especially with younger audiences, they’re very used to digital worlds like Roblox and things like that.
“One of the ideas we’re playing with right now,” he continues, “is to give people the ability to go into Supa Soula’s studio and do their own remixes of his songs – but to do this as a game. Maybe there’s a competition and the best remix gets a release.”
Of course, digital avatars and ‘virtual’ pop stars are far from new. Avon readily admits that Supa Soula and WeAreMetaMuse are part of a tradition that extends from Gorillaz to Hatsune Miku. “We’re not breaking the mould here,” he concedes. “But I do think our ethos, and how we’re trying to build out this digital collective, that’s what’s special.”
In a world of fake AI bands, vocal clones, and band’s resorting to ‘psy-op’ marketing campaigns, the virtual avatar of Supa Soula is a little refreshing. Which parts of a creative project are human and which digital, where AI was used and where it wasn’t: these are the details that feel increasingly important in our modern world.
There will be many who will always prefer flesh and blood performers over virtual simulacra – and that’s just fine with Avon. “I see this as entertainment,” Avon says simply. “We’re not trying to pretend that this is a real person. It’s just some great music wrapped in a digital avatar who’s dancing and singing for you; if you like it, great, if you don’t, that’s ok.”

Learn more at wearemetamuse.com. 
The post Can digital avatars unlock a new career path for ‘behind-the-scenes’ songwriters? WeAreMetaMuse thinks so appeared first on MusicTech.