Boy George has rerecorded "Karma Chameleon" using AI to recreate the original vocal magic, more than four decades after the Culture Club hit ruled the charts. The reason behind the move is the real story.
According to Rolling Stone, the new version launches Artist Included, a music tech company co-founded by his manager Paul Kemsley and entertainment attorney Jeremy Rosen. Boy George is the creative director. But he never owned the masters to his own song.
"Control," Boy George says when asked why he returned to the studio. "Having some say over where it goes. 'Karma Chameleon' is a secret weapon. It's a song you starve the audience for because they want to hear it."
The financial reality stung. When Virgin Voyages licensed the track for a Richard Branson campaign, it cost roughly $4 million. Of that, $2 million went to whoever actually owns the masters. Boy George received only an appearance fee. "Karma's a bitch," he says.
"When we wrote that song, we weren't looking 40 years ahead," Boy George reflects. "Having control over it again, to a certain extent, is very exciting."
The rerecord sounds warmer and sits lower in the mix than the 1983 original, but it is faithful enough to pass for a pristine remaster. The band re-recorded all the instrumentation fresh, with original producer Steve Levine handling additional production. Only the vocal is AI-assisted, trained on archival demos Levine had been sitting on for decades.
When Boy George stepped into the studio, he joked: "I was like a pub singer imitating myself." The vinyl drops in red, gold, and green—the colors from the song itself—with completely reimagined cover art.
For a legacy artist, this is control on his own terms.
