AI musicians are here. They are among us. In a recent article, Billboard called attention to a number of AI artists across a bunch of different genres who have appeared on various different niche Billboard charts -- inhuman creations with names like ChildPets Galore, Unbound Music, Enlly Blue. Breaking Rust, and BOI WHAT. (A lot of them seem to operate in the contemporary Christian space, which is sort of interesting when you consider that these things are inherently godless just by virtue of their existence.) The most prominent of those artists is the fake R&B singer Xania Monet, who appears to be the first AI-generated artist to appear on any Billboard airplay chart. Yesterday, Xania Monet's creator appeared on CBS This Morning to discuss her enterprise.
The person behind Xania Monet is a Mississippi-based songwriter named Telisha "Nikki" Jones. Jones created Monet as a digital avatar when she was teaching herself to use AI four months ago. Since September, that avatar has appeard on charts like Hot Gospel Songs, Hot R&B Songs, and Emerging Artists, and the single "How Was I Supposed To Know?" went to #1 on the R&B Digital Song Sales. Most tellingly, "How Was I Supposed To Know?" has also appeared on the Adult R&B Airplay chart, which apparently makes it the first AI artist to appear on any radio airplay chart, even if it's an extremely specific one with only a small number of reporting stations.
Gayle King sat down with Telisha "Nikki" Jones on yesterday's episode of CBS This Morning, and Jones talked about her creative process. She's been writing poems for years, documenting her own experiences and those of her friends and family members. She copy-pastes those poems into Suno, selects a bunch of different prompts, and lets the computer make the song. Sometimes, she has to hit refresh a bunch of times until she lands on one that she likes.
According to Billboard, this led to a bidding war and a multimillion-dollar deal with Hallwood Media, a new company led by former Geffen president Neil Jacobson. Variety reports that Hallwood also recently signed Imoliver, which the company calls "the most-streamed creator on AI music generation platform Suno." Hallwood seems to be working to corner a nasty little market.
In her interview with Gayle King, Telisha "Nikki" Jones says, "Xania is an extension of me, so I look at her as a real person." When asked about whether her process is a "shortcut," Jones says, "I wouldn't call it a shortcut because I still put in the work. And any time something new comes about and it challenges the norm and challenges what we're used to, you're going to get strong reactions behind it. And I just feel like AI is the new era that we're in, and I look at it as a tool, as a instrument, utilize it." Here's that news story:
Xania Monet manager Romel Murphy also defended the project in a recent CNN interview: "[Jones] put it out in a song because she wanted to put her poetry out. The rest is just history… Society has a norm for singers, and your voice has to be a certain type, your look has to be a certain type. And we wanted to also involve the technology of AI and create the avatar and just allow people to connect to the true essence of the lyrics and the words."
Discussing the implications of this project, Murphy says, "AI doesn't replace the artist. That's not our goal at all. It doesn't diminish the creativity and take away from the human experience. It's a new frontier, and like anything with change, some people are receptive, and some people are apprehensive… Music has to evolve as well. We just have to keep the integrity and be intentional about the realness of it and push the realness to the world."
Murphy make a confusing point about how this is like kids being drawn to Michael Jackson and Prince songs even though those artists aren't alive anymore. And he adds that there are apparently plans to take Xania Monet on tour? Yeesh. Here's the video for "How Was I Supposed To Know?," if you're curious.
OK. Look. Telisha "Nikki" Jones seems like a nice person. She obviously believes that she's doing something here. There seems to be some implication that AI will democratize the process of making music, that it'll give opportunities to people who wouldn't otherwise have any opportunity to succeed. (Jones, by all accounts, cannot sing. That's a real barrier!) But I hope everyone involved knows that thay're basically being floated out there to put human faces on a creepy, extractive phenomenon that the general public doesn't actually want and that is engineered by rich people putting all their money into a bubble that seems destined to wreck the economy. Nobody likes this shit! It sucks!
If the fake avatar Xania Jones can make music that convincingly approximates the stuff that gets played on Adult R&B stations, that's really more of an indictment of those stations and the formulaic music that they play. We should all have some respect for ourselves and for actual human experience and artistry. We deserve better.
