Hotel Lobby AI is the viral trend filling your feed with two people, or two cats, rapping at a hanging microphone in front of an orange wall. The room, the mic and the moves all come from one 2022 performance by Quavo and Takeoff, and AI swaps in everybody else.
There is no official Hotel Lobby AI app. You get in through a generator, and we built one in the first week of October. Before the how-to, it helps to know what you're remaking.
| Question | Short answer |
|---|---|
| What is it? | An AI video trend that recasts one 2022 performance with two new characters |
| What's the original? | Quavo and Takeoff performing "Hotel Lobby" on A COLORS SHOW, June 17, 2022 |
| When did it blow up? | September 15 to 25, 2026 |
| What do I need? | Two photos, or one for a solo clip |
| Where do I make one? | Hotel Lobby AI, in the browser |
What is Hotel Lobby AI?
Every Hotel Lobby AI clip remakes the same 15 seconds of Quavo and Takeoff performing their song "Hotel Lobby" for COLORS, with two new characters in their places.
The song came out on May 20, 2022, under the full title "Hotel Lobby (Unc & Phew)". Unc is Quavo and Phew is Takeoff, uncle and nephew and two thirds of Migos. People call the meme the "Migos AI trend" all the time, but the credit reads Quavo and Takeoff, and Offset isn't on the song.
The orange room comes from a second video. On June 17, 2022, the Berlin music platform COLORS posted the two of them performing the song for its series A COLORS SHOW, where the set is always a room painted one color and a microphone hanging from the ceiling. Theirs was orange. If you're wondering where the hotel lobby is, the video doesn't have one. The name is only the song title.
The routine, second by second
The meme uses a stretch that starts about 15 seconds in, which is where the video above begins. Takeoff has the verse. He stands side-on to the mic with his chin up and raps like he has all day. Quavo doesn't rap a word in this part. He's the hype man, and his half is the half everybody copies. We went through it frame by frame when we built our generator:
| Time in the original | What Quavo does |
|---|---|
| About 0:15 | Holds a fist out toward Takeoff's shoulder |
| 0:19 | Turns his palms up at waist height, as if he's carrying a tray |
| 0:21 | Rubs his hands together |
| 0:22 to 0:26 | Rolls his fists and turns all the way round, with his back to the camera for a second or two |
| 0:26 | Points at Takeoff with both hands. Takeoff points back |
| 0:27 | Both of them put a finger to their lips |
| 0:29 | Shades his eyes with a flat hand |
Our first written version had Quavo shaking Takeoff's hand. He never does. From the front, his open palm only looks like it reaches Takeoff, and the AI took us at our word and rendered a handshake.
How the Hotel Lobby AI trend took off
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| May 20, 2022 | Quavo and Takeoff release the single |
| June 17, 2022 | COLORS posts the performance |
| November 1, 2022 | Takeoff is shot and killed in Houston, aged 28 |
| September 15, 2026 | The first AI version we can date goes up on TikTok, with Harvey and Mike from Suits |
| September 18 | Two cats on X reach 7.7 million views, by Billboard's count |
| September 23 | Quavo reposts the untouched original, captioned "The Original #HotelLobby" |
| September 25 | Google searches peak |
| October 1 | Victoria Monét and Quavo film the routine with no AI |
Two rows need a note. The video had about 6.9 million views on the day Takeoff died and 112 million by this August, so roughly 94 percent of its views came after he was gone. By the time AI got hold of the clip, it was already a kind of memorial.
And that first AI version came from @glorify_studio, an account that promotes an AI video tool, so the trend started out as an ad for a generator. Know Your Meme lists that post as the first. Some write-ups say it began with cats in early September, but we couldn't find a version dated before the 15th. By October 7, searches were down to a tenth of the peak, while the original was still adding more than 600,000 views a day.
The versions everyone shares
Animals win. The two most-watched versions we could verify are both cats: @ogfeitoza's on X and one from @therealmeowfia, which has about 5.9 million plays on TikTok. The same creator put the pair on YouTube too:
TV and film duos came first and never stopped. After Harvey and Mike came Walter and Jesse, then Spider-Man and the Green Goblin, in a TikTok whose caption credits the song to "Quavo & Offset". Then famous people started posting AI versions of themselves, among them Justin Thomas, Kevin Hart and Niecy Nash. The most-liked remake we found has no AI in it: Monét standing in for Takeoff while Quavo does his own moves again, four years later, with more than a million likes on Instagram.
One thing you won't find is a solo version. Every clip we came across has two people in it, because the pairing is the joke.
How to make a Hotel Lobby AI video
Hotel Lobby AI is a name shared by a few dozen websites and templates, and every one of them does one of two things. Some reuse the original performance: they take the 2022 footage and repaint the two people in it, so you get the exact routine, and usually the original recording. Others start from your photos and a written description and generate a new performance, where the room looks the same and the routine is close but the AI is improvising, music included.
Whichever kind you pick, the most common failure is the two people swapping sides or blending into one face partway through, going by the tools' own troubleshooting pages. Clear, front-facing photos with one person in each give you the best odds.
Three ways to make one in our generator
Hotel Lobby AI does both, plus one thing that isn't part of the trend. You pick a length first, and the length decides which modes you see.
| Mode | You need | What you get | Pick it when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Original Routine | 2 photos, 10 or 15 seconds | The same moves and the same music as the sample the tool plays before you generate | You want the version people recognize |
| AI Freestyle | 2 photos, 10 or 15 seconds | Similar moves and music, made up by AI for your two people | You want your own take |
| Solo | 1 photo, 5 seconds | One person at the mic in the orange room | You don't have a second person |
At 5 seconds the two-photo option is called Duet. It works like AI Freestyle and covers the opening of the routine, because five seconds isn't long enough for the turn or the shush. Solo is our own spin-off: we didn't find anyone in the trend doing a one-person version.
We read the public pages of about thirty Hotel Lobby generators in early October. Most do one of these three things, and we didn't find another with all three in one place, though this corner of the internet changes daily.
Step by step
- Add your photos, one clear, front-facing photo per person. The left slot raps, and the swap button between the slots fixes it if you put them the wrong way round.
- Pick the shape and resolution. 16:9 suits YouTube, X and Facebook, and 9:16 suits TikTok, Reels and Shorts.
- Pick the length: 5, 10 or 15 seconds.
- Pick the mode that appears under it.
- Generate, then download your clip.
You'll need to sign in to generate. Clips come out without a watermark, and a 5-second test is the quickest way to check a pair before you make a longer one.
If you want a different room or a different routine, our Reference to Video tool takes a few photos and your own description of what happens.
Before you post
Quavo has welcomed the trend. He told the AP he's proud and thankful that people are keeping Takeoff's name alive, and that when he sees a version he doesn't like, he scrolls past. Others are less relaxed. The objection, made at length in The Root and Andscape, is that Takeoff can't consent to having his performance turned into a template, and that swapping him out for a cat erases him from his own work.
Four rules that seem fair
- Use yourself, friends who've said yes, or your pets.
- Leave out people who have died, other people's kids and politicians.
- Say it's AI when you post. YouTube requires it for realistic altered video.
- Credit Quavo and Takeoff in the caption.
Hotel Lobby AI: quick answers
Is Hotel Lobby AI an app?
There's no single official one. It's a trend, and "Hotel Lobby AI" is what people search to find a way in. Ours is a website that runs in the browser, with nothing to install.
What song is used in Hotel Lobby AI videos?
"Hotel Lobby (Unc & Phew)" by Quavo and Takeoff, from 2022. Most clips use the audio from their A COLORS SHOW performance, which is a different recording from the studio single.
Who are the two rappers in the orange room?
Quavo and Takeoff, uncle and nephew and two of the three members of Migos. Takeoff, who raps the verse the meme uses, was killed in November 2022.
Can one person do the Hotel Lobby AI trend?
The trend itself always has two people, and some tools suggest putting the same person in both spots. Ours has a Solo mode that makes a five-second clip from one photo.
Is the original song in a Hotel Lobby AI video?
That depends on the tool and the mode. Tools that reuse the original performance usually carry its audio. In ours, Original Routine keeps the sample's music, while AI Freestyle, Duet and Solo come with a newly generated beat and vocals.
If you haven't watched the original all the way through, start there. It's under three minutes long, and every version in your feed is borrowing from it. Then go put your cat in it.