Sauce That Wins Five Awards in Los Angeles

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS — The AI-generated music video for “Sauce That,” a single by San Antonio artist Rebel Lion, won five awards at the AI International Music Video Festival in Hollywood on August 15, 2026.

The festival is one of three AI International festivals — Film, Music Video and Micro-Drama — that share a single Hollywood afternoon at the Los Angeles Performing Arts Conservatory, 1534 N. Highland Ave, each with its own selections and awards. The events are operated by The AI Project, a California nonprofit public benefit corporation.

Awards

The video took three jury awards and two audience awards:

Winning Best Comedy and Best Experimental from the same jury is an unusual pairing. Experimental work tends not to be funny and comedy tends not to be formally strange. “Sauce That” is both, deliberately.

Taking the jury's Best Music Video and the audience's Best Music Video on the same afternoon is also uncommon. Juries and audiences frequently disagree, which is roughly the point of having both.

The result is listed publicly by the festival, under its August 15, 2026 winners:

REBEL LION – SAUCE THAT, Scott Newman (USA): Best Music Video, Best Experimental, Best Comedy, Audience Choice Best Music Video, Most Fun.

See the festival's winners list.

About the song

“Sauce That” is a comedic track, and the video was built to match the chaos of it rather than smooth it out. It is available on Apple Music.

A dance is on the way to go with it.

Why AI, and why it is not a shortcut

An independent artist funding a decade of work out of their own pocket does not have a music video budget. That is the plain reason the video is AI-generated: the alternative was no video.

What the awards suggest is that the tool was used for something rather than used instead of something. Best Experimental is not given for prompting competently. The chaos in the video is the point, and AI happened to be the medium that could produce chaos at that scale for the money available.

About Rebel Lion

Rebel Lion is Scott Newman, a 36-year-old rapper from San Antonio, Texas. His debut album Bluebonnet Plague is scheduled for release on July 27, 2027, after roughly a decade of self-funded work. He is separately raising $72,727 to stage a single live performance, with the full budget published line by line.

He also sells GAMFC cold brew, a canned coffee named after another of his songs, roasted in San Antonio by Pulp Coffee Roasters. “Sauce That” is why barbecue keeps turning up around the project.

Media contact

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