Despite being an annoying hipster, I definitely did not see this one coming: Facebook is releasing an app that will let users post and share videos of them rapping over beats, which are provided by the app (via TechCrunch).

The app is called Bars, and its main selling point is it provides the beats and lets you create 60-second rap videos over them. According to TechCrunch, you can then post the video to a TikTok-style feed, where people can watch it and mark it as “fire” (that is, of course, if your skills are up to par). The app also promises “studio quality vocal effects,” including actual, honest-to-goodness AutoTune. I hope there’s a slider that goes from “making my voice passable” to “T-Pain.”

The app also promises an auto-rhyme dictionary for those who mark themselves as “beginners” in the app’s sign-up. For those closer to the “Advanced” level, it also promises a Freestyle mode, which gives you eight random words to work into a 16-bar off-the-cuff rap.

If you’re itching to lay down some Bars, I have some bad news: the app seems to currently be in closed beta, but you can at least sign up to secure your username and get a place in line for when the app starts opening up.

I’m going to be honest, I don’t understand why the, erm, bars in the App Store description are so weak. The announcement rap posted on Instagram is honestly not bad?

The app promises it’ll provide professionally made beats for you to rap over, and if the examples it’s posting on Instagram are indicative of the overall quality, that may actually be the case. They sound way closer to what you’d hear in an actual song than to the embarrassing things I’ve posted to SoundCloud. (No, I’m not linking that.)

The app is being made by Facebook’s New Product Experimentation group, which also released a similar musical app called Collab last year that allows musicians to make songs together, each providing separate parts. After scrolling through that app a bit, my hopes for Bars are slightly diminished, as the audio quality isn’t near the level of what the Bars previews promise. That said, I can see Bars being able to fine-tune its EQ, as it will really only have to deal with the human voice, rather than an infinite range of instruments.

So far, the app is only on iOS, and I wouldn’t hold my breath for an Android version; it doesn’t seem like Collab has made it to the Play Store yet, either. For as much fun as I’ve poked, though, I actually will genuinely keep this app until it lets me in — not so I can actually contribute (goodness no) but so I can see what people come up with.

Facebook was not immediately available for comment.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/26/22303604/facebook-rap-app-bars-experiment