Lil Wayne doesn’t believe AI can take his throne. Does the technology have the ability to produce a record such as “A Milli” on its own strength? He says, not at the moment, and while the rapper does appreciate AI, he also feels confident that the technology can’t surpass his talent. “I love it. I love that AI is what it is. I love to be able to stand right next to whoever AI is, he, she, they, whatever, or whatever AI is, stand right next to them and I’m still better,” Lil Wayne said on the “Not Just Football with Cam Heyward” podcast. He also shared that he first became exposed to AI through a friend who had concerns about how it could generate a verse in the likeness of an artist. So, Lil Wayne tested it out himself and said he has tried it on different occasions. One of the examples he provided was Proto, which is the patented creator of hologram devices , according to a press release . It creates interactive experiences through its conversational AI avatars, which feature...

A multi-million-dollar initiative is on the way to ensure the responsible use of AI at two HBCUs. ASCEND-AI According to a press release, Howard University and Bowie State University will benefit from a $4 million initiative called ASCEND-AI (Advancing Student and Collaborative Educator Networks for Digital AI Integration). It is led by LaTanya Brown-Robertson, associate dean for academic innovation and student success in Howard’s College of Arts and Sciences , and is supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education. ASCEND-AI will reach about 400 undergraduate and graduate students and 50 faculty members across each campus annually to increase their AI literacy. The program seeks to strengthen its evaluation of AI-generated misinformation and hallucinations and encourage ethical use of AI. Additionally, the partnership will prepare participants to use AI for innovation and entrepreneurship. Faculty members at Howard University and Bowie State University will be trained...

A judge has blocked Fawn Weaver’s bankruptcy petitions, according to The Tennessean. As AFROTECH™ previously reported, court-appointed receiver Phillip G. Young Jr. oversees the whiskey brand’s assets, including real estate holdings , intellectual property, affiliated ventures, and related entities. Weaver took to Instagram on March 17 and announced, “The receivership of Uncle Nearest is done.” The receivership had been in place since August 2025 after the company allegedly defaulted on more than $108 million in loans to its lender, Farm Credit Mid-America. “If you’ve been reading the headlines lately, you probably thought that wasn’t possible, but rest assured it always was, and it is,” Fawn said in the video. “I’m so grateful to God for our leadership team, who kept their heads down and kept working.”   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Fawn Weaver (@fawn.weaver) Simultaneously, Fawn, Keith, and her investment holding company, Grant Sidney, filed a lawsuit against...

The NAACP has released findings from a new report examining health equity across the United States. As one of the largest contemporary grassroots assessments of community health resources to date, “ACE Your Health” is backed by rigorous, science-based analysis from global pharmaceutical company Sanofi. According to a news release shared with AFROTECH™, the report draws on responses from nearly 23,000 people across 47 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. It provides insight into the real-world conditions shaping health outcomes in under-resourced neighborhoods and historically underserved communities, offering data to help local leaders, policymakers, advocates, and health systems drive meaningful change. “The voices of nearly 23,000 people are a powerful reminder that health is shaped, or undermined, long before anyone walks into a doctor’s office. Our collaboration with the NAACP on the ACE Your Health report reflects Sanofi’s belief that the most powerful innovations happen...

Facebook has launched a new program to place creators on a fast track to success. According to a news release, Facebook has introduced a program that will ensure creators can receive guaranteed pay and increased content reach. The program, named “Creator Fast Track,” is intended to help them scale on the social media platform. Facebook states that in 2025 alone, creators were paid nearly $3 billion, a 35% increase from 2024. The program is also in response to feedback that stated it was “daunting” for creators to transition to Facebook, the release notes. “We wanted to be able to address creators’ concerns that it would be a hard road to onboard onto Facebook and build a community from scratch and build a following,” said Yair Livne, VP of creator product at Facebook, in a briefing with reporters, according to TechCrunch. “So we set up this program to address that.” Perks for creators in the program include increased reach on eligible Reels and three months of guaranteed pay for...

Many New York-based DoorDash delivery workers may qualify for a payout in a $16.75 million settlement. Settlement Details Newsweek reports that the settlement follows an investigation by New York’s attorney general’s office, which found that tips through DoorDash were being credited to its guaranteed payment rather than paid in addition to base earnings. The investigation also found that Dashers and customers were misled about how tips were distributed , believing they would serve as additional compensation. Who Qualifies Those who worked for DoorDash delivering food in New York between May 2017 and September 2019 and had some or all of their customer tips applied to the guaranteed payment will be eligible for the settlement, reports Newsweek. To file a claim, Dashers must meet both conditions and have received a notice from the settlement administrator. The claim deadline was Feb. 13, 2026, and claims could be submitted online or by mail. According to Alex Beene, a financial...

Wally Sajimi has built a solid reputation as a creative strategist, innovator, and tech founder whose work sits at the intersection of fashion, culture, and experimental technology. As the co-founder of Nietzsche Labs, a New York-based venture studio built on experimentation and the pursuit of unconventional ventures that often emerge from unexpected places, Sajimi believes in challenging the status quo — even when the end result isn’t clear early on, he shared with AFROTECH™. Inspired by his time reading Friedrich Nietzsche, the studio serves as a growing umbrella for ideas, projects, and investments across multiple disciplines. For Sajimi, it’s about fluency, not dilution. How Nietzsche Labs Came To Be “I spent time at the intersection of music, fashion, and technology — watching trends get identified, monetized, and commodified by people who didn’t originate them. I wanted to build something that moved differently,” Sajimi told AFROTECH™, reflecting on how Nietzsche Labs came to...

For viewers across YouTube and TikTok, “Pop the Balloon or Find Love” has become one of the internet’s most recognizable dating shows. The viral series places singles face-to-face with potential matches who signal interest or rejection by popping a balloon. Comments on their YouTube videos display reactions that are often hilarious, sometimes awkward, and occasionally heartwarming. What began as a social media experiment quickly grew into a cultural moment in online dating conversations. Now the creators behind the show are seeking to bring that same energy into the tech world. Husband-and-wife duo Arlette Amuli and Bolia Matundu are launching Luv or Pop, and they describe it as a dating app designed to turn the show’s decision-driven format into a digital matchmaking experience. Instead of endless swiping, the couple wants users to focus on building intentional connections and making transparent choices. From Social Media Experiment To Viral Hit Amuli and Matundu told AFROTECH™...

Bryan Myers is prioritizing responsible growth at [solidcore]. Before Myers started working for [solidcore], he was a client. He took his first [solidcore] workout class 11 years ago and didn’t initially foresee having a greater presence within the company, which offers high-intensity, low-impact workout classes done on a reformer machine, according to its website. In 2018, he joined as chief operating officer, bringing experience as a project leader at Boston Consulting Group and as a former vice president of strategy and financial planning, as well as new-store development, at sweetgreen, per his LinkedIn. Today, he leads as the president and CEO of [solidcore] — after serving as president and COO — succeeding founder Anne Mahlum. Being a client-first leader is his superpower, he told AFROTECH™ in an interview. He has maintained empathy for the client experience and a deep appreciation for the coaches. Protecting The Culture Of [Solidcore] Myers views his takeover as a unique...

Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen is stepping down, and AI may be playing a role in his departure. In a letter shared on Thursday, March 13, Narayen said that he has made the decision to transition out of the role after 15 years. He has served a total of 28 years at the company. Under his leadership, the company grew from fewer than 3,000 employees to more than 30,000, delivered tech into the hands of billions, and increased revenue from $1 billion to $25 billion, the letter stated. Narayen will officially make the transition when a successor is appointed. “I am so incredibly proud of what we have accomplished together,” he expressed in the letter. Narayen’s departure comes at a time when the company’s revenue forecast just surpassed estimates, but did not resolve investor concerns about the company’s innovation in AI compared to competitors, reports Bloomberg. The staffing change “adds questions around strategic continuity, capital allocation priorities, and pace of innovation,” Grace...

YouTube is expanding who will benefit from its likeness detection. According to a press release published on Wednesday, March 11, YouTube first launched a tool in 2025 to manage AI-generated content and give creators the ability to review content that matches them, such as deepfakes. They can then request that the content be removed if it violates YouTube’s policies. Expanding Program The tool initially benefited nearly 4 million creators in the YouTube Partner Program, according to TechCrunch . Now, it is being expanded to a pilot group of government officials, journalists, and political candidates, the release confirmed. Leslie Miller, YouTube’s vice president of government affairs and public policy, said in a release shared with TechCrunch that the company is aware of the high risks of AI impersonation, particularly in the civic space. She described the expansion as a “new shield” but stressed that caution is still needed around how likeness detection is used. “This expansion is...

Vishnu Kannan has accomplished something few teenagers can claim. At age 16, he sold his tech startup, Room40 AI, for $2 million in stock, per the Baltimore Sun. Currently a 17-year-old senior at River Hill High School in Clarksville, MD, Kannan developed a love for math and problem-solving as an early elementary school student, notes the outlet. “I think a lot of the time when kids are introduced to math, they don’t really see it as a subject where there’s still things waiting to be discovered … a subject where we don’t really know what’s going on. But I think math has that quality much more than anything else,” Kannan told the Baltimore Sun. What Is Room40 AI? Kannan developed Room40 AI during a summer research program at Stanford University — but getting there took several key steps. Kannan taught himself to code in the popular programming language Python when he was in sixth grade, per The Baltimore Sun. Around the same time, he started reading about AI. By eighth grade, Kannan...

The NAACP is concerned about an approved permit that would harm the environment and the health of citizens in Southaven, MS, and surrounding areas. According to a news release from the NAACP, Southaven could soon be home to Elon Musk’s xAI power plants. The AI company founded by Musk in 2023 is building a “truth-seeking AI chatbot” called Grok, which features “frontier capabilities in conversation, coding, reasoning, and image and video generation,” according to its website. Per the release, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) issued an air permit that grants Musk’s company permission to operate various polluting methane gas turbines at its facility in Southaven. The permit was issued on March 10, following a hearing where community members openly spoke against MDEQ’s draft permit approving xAI’s presence in Southaven. To power xAi’s Colossus 2 data center in Memphis, TN, the company will build 41 gas turbines in Southaven, just across the state line, the...

Ex-MIT and Stanford engineer KJ Hardrict is changing the interview process for job seekers. Hardrict’s background spans engineering, venture capital, and content. He has worked at Link Ventures as a principal and served as a founding engineer and a senior engineer for various startups, according to his LinkedIn profile. Hardrict has also gained more than 115,000 YouTube subscribers. It’s the variety of his experience that has given him a front seat to the hiring process, Hardrict acknowledged to AFROTECH™. “As an engineer and startup operator, I saw how often incredible people were filtered out before anyone spoke to them. As an investor, I saw founders struggling to identify key talent in a sea of resumes,” he said. Hardrict also considered his own experience in the job market and noticed that being seen, not just read about, set him up for success. “Recruiters would watch my videos on YouTube, and within a few minutes, they understood who I was and how I thought. That made me...

After more than 20 years, BlackDoctor is revamping its mission to make health more accessible to Black Americans. Black Doctor 2.0 Formerly BlackDoctor.org, BlackDoctor has relaunched as a 360-degree health destination driven by the motto “Where Culture Meets Care,” according to a press release. The platform has expanded its reach to a network of over 20,000 practitioners, making it the largest single database of black healthcare professionals in America, according to BlackDoctor President Akinwole (Aki) Garrett. “We have pretty much every Black HCP (healthcare professional) in our database across the country,” Garrett told AFROTECH™ in an interview. Users will have expanded access to Black healthcare providers using the Find a Doctor tool, while healthcare providers will have a more actionable network, he shared. Soon, BlackDoctor’s network will extend to culturally sensitive physicians, referring to those who serve a high population of Black patients but are not Black. WellBot...