Lucas Horne, who hails from Nottinghamshire, spent nearly four months in a coma after a brain bleed in 2016 at age 17.
Since then, he’s been writing songs for years, but AI helped transform him into The BTO Kid. Now, he’s shortlisted for the Future Sound Awards.
Lucas was 17 when, in December 2016, with no warning, he suffered a large, traumatic bleed across his brain.
He had no idea he’d been living with an AVM, a defect in his blood vessels, which ruptured and put him in a coma. The next three years were spent recovering in a care home.
He couldn’t walk and struggled to talk. Writing down his thoughts, almost like a diary, was something he described as wanting to do from very early on.
“During my care home days when I couldn’t really express myself very well—I still can’t—but I could write about it, it was an outlet for me,” he says.
“Since I woke up, I’ve been writing… but for a long time I couldn’t record anything.”
Lucas, now 26, has spent years recovering physically and working on his speech. But when he was finally able to record his songs, he got frustrated with how his voice had changed.
Lucas, aka The BTO Kid, uses AI to enhance his music, compensating for his monotone speaking style.
He’s one of 15 creators shortlisted for the Future Sound Awards, recognizing AI’s role in music innovation.
AI is here to stay in music. Last year saw a surge in its adoption, with 60 million users leveraging AI tools, despite the controversy surrounding it.
Lucas says he’s a perfect example of how the technology can be used for good.
“I’ve been able to use AI to express how I’m feeling. It’s been big for me to create (music) that I’m proud of. I can see the arguments, but from my view, I know AI helped me create something I couldn’t before."
"I’m not Adele, but I have been able to make something that I’m proud of and that expresses my viewpoint of what’s happened to me.”
BTO stands for Beat The Odds, and his shortlisted track is titled AIGave Me A Voice.
“I pinch myself every day because this just can’t be true” is the opening line, which he says reflects how far he has come from the moment he woke up and discovered what had happened.