Key Takeaways
- AI-generated edits replace Quavo and Takeoff in their 2022 “HOTEL LOBBY” COLORS performance.
- Quavo and Victoria Monét recreated the viral format together without AI.
- Their respective albums, QRÖMELIFE and Frequency of Love, arrive Friday (Oct. 2).
If you’ve seen the Obamas, Peter Parker, or Walter White from “Breaking Bad” — among a slew of other celebrities, characters, and animals — rapping along to Takeoff and Quavo's “HOTEL LOBBY (Unc & Phew),” your eyes aren’t deceiving you. Over the past several weeks, AI videos have flooded the internet with people swapping their faces onto the late Migos rapper and his uncle during their “A COLORS SHOW” performance of the Only Built For Infinity Links single, so much so that the latter has decided to jump on the trend himself.
On Thursday (Oct. 1), Victoria Monét linked up with Quavo for their own take on the viral phenomenon, only without the artificial intelligence. After all, who needs that when you’re already two of the biggest stars in music? “Hop off a 16-passenger / This a G5, no, this not a Challenger,” the Grammy-winning singer mouthed while the “Himothy” rapper, much to our delight, brought back a few of his dance moves from the original 2022 video.
“No AI,” Monét made clear in the caption. If you’re curious what brought the two together, they both have albums arriving at midnight tonight. The “On My Mama” singer’s Frequency of Love boasts collaborations with Leon Thomas, SZA, Lucky Daye, Bryson Tiller, and several more guests. Quavo’s QRÖMELIFE, meanwhile, will reunite him with Offset while also featuring A$AP Rocky, Future, Yung Miami, and others.
Monét’s post continued, “Both of us have real albums coming out tonight! Link in both of our bios to listen and support human legacy.” Take a look below, then scroll to find out more about the AI “Hotel Lobby” trend everyone seems to be so enamored with.
How the AI “Hotel Lobby” trend took over the internet
To give you a little backstory, Quavo and Takeoff dropped by COLORS in 2022 under the moniker Unc & Phew. Released in celebration of Black Music Month, the performance saw them rapping the single against an orange backdrop with a mic dangling above their heads. Since then, the video has gone viral quite a few times (it currently has over 123 million views on YouTube), though nothing quite like what happened last month.
One social media user used AI to swap out the duo with cats, with the video racking up more than 13,000 retweets on X. From there, the internet began replacing Quavo and Takeoff with practically anything and everything — including Barack and Michelle Obama, Beyoncé and Blue Ivy Carter, Woody and Buzz Lightyear, you name it. Of course, a few celebrities themselves also joined in on the fun, including Kevin Hart and his wife, Eniko, as well as Niecy Nash and her wife, Jessica Betts, to mention a few.