Hey, Google? Master P & Luther Vandross Aren't The Same Person. Sincerely, All Of Twitter
Oh, brother, another piece of technology that has potential racial bias built into its hardware. Google is receiving backlash from users on Twitter after their search engine mistook R&B singer Luther Vandross for rapper Master P, who are two people who it's pretty hard to mistake especially when you consider the careers they've had.
Born in 1951, the "Never Too Much" singer is a whole generation older than the West Coast label founder born in 1970. Even besides the fact that their musical styles are like night and day, the two artists came to prominence in completely different decades. With his silky smooth vocals, Vandross ruled the charts for years since the 80s and won a whopping eight Grammy awards in his lifetime. On the other hand, Master P was more of a hip-hop staple during the late 90s and early 2000s.
Plus, did we mention that Vandross has unfortunately been dead since 2005? So, really, how could Google have mixed these two up? Well, users on Twitter gave their own two cents when they discovered the tech company's mistake.
Fans call Google 'loud and wrong' for their Luther Vandross/Master P blunder
Google learned its lesson the hard way that you don't mess with Luther Vandross's beloved legacy, or else Twitter will come for you. On July 5, the Internet discovered that when you searched for Vandross's name on the search engine, the cover photo in the singer's Google-generated biography blurb was instead a photo of rapper Master P with a pair of glasses on. That's right, the mistaken photo of Master P wasn't just in the images tab, it was straight up the first photo you see when you input Vandross.
"Loud and wrong, just loud and wrong!" one user joked after searching for the singer. Of course, this oversight didn't sit well with many users on Twitter, who voiced their disappointment at the mixup. "Google, count your days! Mistaking Master P for Luther Vandross! SMH," wrote another user with four facepalm emojis. "Listen, who is in charge of this?" one fan ranted in their video. "I wanna speak to a manager expeditiously."
Even musician Questlove chimed in on his Instagram about the situation. "This is why humans aren't replaceable," the Roots frontman stated under a screenshot of the error. How about everyone just double-check themselves from now on? We're looking at you, Google.