The emergence of generative artificial intelligence is reshaping the boundaries of creation across various artistic fields, raising questions about the nature and limits of artistic creation. This paper examines the reinterpretation of Stromae's Papaoutai (2013), a song that explores themes of isolation and fatherhood. Originally released as a deeply autobiographical work accompanied by a highly performative music video, an AI-generated Afro Soul version, based on voice cloning using the voice of the singer Arsene Mukendi, was released in December 2025. The song went viral in early 2026, and several weeks after its release, Arsene Mukendi was invited to the studio to produce a music video to accompany the song.
Drawing on theories of music videos, intersemiosis (Kourdis, 2020, 2025), and multimodality (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001, 2006), the paper presents a comparative multimodal analysis of the original and its adaptation. It explores shifts in narrative structure, colour, gesture, framing, and the interplay between image, music, and lyrics as mechanisms of meaning-making, thereby highlighting the transformation of the emotional and autobiographical qualities of the original work.
The paper further investigates audience reception through sentiment analysis of user-generated comments and reactions on the social media platform YouTube, examining viewers' responses to the original and to Arsene Mukendi's reinterpretation of the song. By combining intersemiotic analysis with reception studies, the paper examines how meaning is constructed through the interaction of different semiotic resources and how the AI-generated cover reshapes the song's tempo, intention, and thematic focus.
Loukia Kostopoulou is an Assistant Professor of Translation, Intercultural Communication and Intermedial Studies at the School of French, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and coordinator of the Media Semiotics Research Group (at AUTh SemioLab). She has been a Visiting Scholar to several academic institutions, among which Universitat Jaume Ι, Reggio Emilia University, the Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts at Cyprus University of Technology, and New Bulgarian University. She has published a monograph (Routledge, 2023), several edited volumes (Routledge, Palgrave), book chapters and journal articles in areas revolving around intercultural communication, translation and intermedial studies. She is also the guest editor of two special journal issues in intermedial crossovers across audiovisual and interactive media (Syn-Thèses and Punctum). She has been involved in several research networks, research projects of the Greek Ministry of Education and European projects such as DIALOGOS.
Konstantinos Digkas is a PhD candidate at the Department of Graphic Arts and Multimedia of Cyprus University of Technology. His research focuses on branding and digital media. He is a member of the Semiotics and Visual Communication Lab and of the thematic network on the semiotics of digital worlds (Hellenic Semiotic Society). His research interests revolve around place branding, semiotics, digital media and AI.
