Quavo and Takeoff’s ‘Hotel Lobby’ becomes viral AI face-swap format
Users are remaking the 2022 COLORS performance with two-image templates, reviving a clip that now carries particular weight after Takeoff’s death.
An artificial-intelligence face-swap format built on Quavo and Takeoff’s 2022 performance of “Hotel Lobby” on A COLORS SHOW has spread widely across TikTok, recasting the two rappers as celebrities, fictional characters and animals while retaining their movements, verses and audio.
The videos use the original orange-backdrop performance as a template. Quavo and Takeoff, performing as Unc & Phew, share a microphone and trade lines, a structure that requires users to upload two images for the substituted performers. Tools including Starrd and Summrs can map those images onto the clip, while CapCut templates have made the format easier to replicate.
The format gained momentum in early September after a video depicting two cats recreating the performance went viral. Hundreds of thousands of versions subsequently circulated online, including pairings of Barack and Michelle Obama, Walter White and Jesse Pinkman, Tobey Maguire and Willem Dafoe in their Spider-Man roles, and footballers Erling Haaland and Jude Bellingham. Versions featuring Elon Musk and Sam Altman also appeared.
Quavo responded on Sept. 23 by reposting the unaltered COLORS performance rather than publicly condemning the altered clips. “Aye Take we viral again The original!!! #HOTELLOBBY,” he wrote. A COLORS repost of the session on TikTok had received more than 900,000 likes, while the original performance had passed 100 million views on YouTube.
The resurgence has also drawn unease because Takeoff, whose birth name was Kirsnick Khari Ball, was shot and killed in Houston on Nov. 1, 2022. Some fans argued that the footage should remain a memory of the rapper rather than become the basis for repeated AI recreations, and questioned the use of performers’ likenesses without their involvement.
The concerns extend beyond Takeoff’s legacy to the use of faces, voices, copyrighted material and images uploaded voluntarily to AI platforms. Reporting by Bloomberg Law has noted that deepfake technology can digitally swap or blend faces and has created unsettled questions about remedies where an image or voice is used without permission. Right-of-publicity rules vary by state; New York expanded protections in 2020 to cover digital replicas of deceased celebrities, while California requires permission for use of a person’s likeness in products or advertising.
“Hotel Lobby” was released on May 20, 2022, produced by Murda Beatz, Keanu Beats and Fabio Aguilar. It was Quavo and Takeoff’s first release under the Unc & Phew name, which reflected their family relationship: Quavo was Takeoff’s uncle. The song later appeared on their 2022 album, Only Built for Infinity Links.
COLORS first released the performance in June 2022, about a month after the track arrived, and reposted it in 2025 and again this year. Takeoff’s death only months after the session has made the clip one of the last prominent images of the pair performing together.