A few days ago, Billboard broke the news that an AI-generated artist, Xania Monet, had signed a multimillion-dollar record deal after meeting with multiple labels. Now, the rest of the music industry is reacting to that unprecedented development, including Kehlani.
In a recent TikTok, the singer/songwriter shared their thoughts on Hallwood Media reportedly shelling out $3 million to sign the fictive musician — whose “persona” is operated behind the scenes by writer Telisha “Nikki” Jones — despite copyright concerns previously voiced by other major labels. Spoiler alert: Kehlani isn’t a fan.
“There is an AI R&B artist who just signed a multimillion-dollar deal … and the person is doing none of the work,” a frustrated-sounding Kehlani told followers without directly naming Monet or Jones. “This is so beyond out of our control.”
The vocalist went on to emphasize the power of AI to create fully formed songs out of thin air, without users having to “credit anyone” involved in making the countless copyrighted works on which such generative music systems are trained. To craft Monet’s music, Jones used Suno — though her manager, Romel Murphy, emphasized to Billboard that his client personally writes all of the original lyrics Monet “sings.”
Regardless, Kehlani says, “Nothing and no one on Earth will ever be able to justify AI to me.”
They added, “I don’t respect it.”
Billboard has reached out to Jones’ reps for comment.
Kehlani certainly isn’t the only person in the industry with objections to Monet’s deal. Sources previously told Billboard that several major labels had also been in talks with Jones, but ultimately walked away with respect to their collective copyright lawsuit against Suno last year.
The basis of the lawsuit is that Suno allegedly infringed upon the copyright of the labels’ catalogs by using pre-existing works to train its technology. The company disagrees with this characterization, arguing that its users are actually making entirely original works via “fair use” of the music in its database.
For Monet’s part, Jones is confident that she owns the rights to all of the recordings she’s created through Suno, given the amount of human effort she’s put into crafting the lyrics to the songs. “She’s been writing poetry for a long time,” Murphy told Billboard of Jones, noting that the reason her work is gaining traction has nothing to do with “a hook and a bridge and a catchy chant — it’s just the lyrics, and they are pure.”
See Kehlani’s TikTok below.