Topline
Songwriter Telisha “Nikki” Jones defended her AI-generated “singer” creation Xania Monet, who has ranked on several Billboard charts in recent weeks, in an interview with CBS Mornings on Wednesday, telling Gayle King she views her AI vocal generation tool as an “instrument” while rebuffing criticisms from Kehlani and others who have slammed her use of AI.
Multiple AI “artists” have debuted on the Billboard charts this month. (Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
NurPhoto via Getty Images
Key Facts
Xania Monet, an AI-generated R&B “artist” who sings songs written by Jones, had led a wave of AI-generated personas debuting on Billboard charts in recent weeks, and it has reportedly racked up more than 44 millions streams in the United States so far.
Xania Monet’s vocals are generated by Suno, an AI platform that was sued by major record labels and the Recording Industry Association of America last year for using copyrighted material to train its AI tools.
Xania Monet has already charted on plenty of Billboard charts since debuting over the summer, including a No. 1 hit on the R&B song sales chart, and this week became the first AI-generated act to rank a song on Billboard’s radio airplay chart.
Alongside Xania Monet is the AI country music product Breaking Rust, which recently debuted the songs “Livin’ On Borrowed Time” and “Walk My Walk” on the country song sales chart, the Christian AI-generated Juno Skye, which debuted on Billboard’s emerging artists chart last week, and AI act Enlly Blue, whose song “Through My Soul” hit the rock sales song chart in October.
The outlet said it cross-checked the songs with Deezer, a platform that offers an AI-detection tool, to verify whether the songs were artificially generated.
Jones, Xania Monet’s creator, signed a multimillion dollar record deal with record label Hallwood Media in September, Billboard reported, after a bidding war reportedly reached $3 million.
How Did Telisha “nikki” Jones Defend Her Use Of Ai Vocals?
Jones told Gayle King on CBS Mornings she writes all of the songs that are released under the name Xania Monet, only using AI to generate vocals. Jones said she believes “AI is the new era that we’re in, and I look at it as a tool, as an instrument,” adding she looks at Xania Monet as an “extension” of herself and a “real person.” Jones demonstrated to King how she generates vocals on the Suno platform, inserting a prompt with lyrics and a description of how she wants the song to sound—“slow tempo, R&B, deep female soulful vocals, light guitar, heavy drums”—generating the song instantly. She rebuffed criticism from singer Kehlani, who had slammed the use of AI in making music in a TikTok, stating the singer is entitled to her opinion and that “technology is evolving and everyone has different ways of putting in work to getting where they’re at.” In a statement to CBS, Hallwood Media said Xania Monet and AI-generated “artists” are the “future of music” and that AI breaks barriers for “creators who might not have had a traditional path into the industry.”
How Have Ai Creations Found Success?
Some of the AI acts that have made waves on the Billboard charts have curated social media profiles as if they are real people. Xania Monet’s Instagram page has more than 144,000 followers, and its account regularly posts purporting to show the artist recording songs in a studio. “I write music,” Xania Monet’s Instagram bio says, even though Xania Monet is not a real person and her songs are written by Jones. The Instagram pages for Breaking Rust and Enlly Blue, each of which have thousands of followers, similarly depict AI-generated personas performing their songs or recording music videos. The people curating these AI acts may also have a financial incentive, Billboard reported, estimating late last month Monet’s small music catalog has already generated more than $52,000 in revenue after racking up 17 million streams in the United States. It’s unclear how much of that revenue goes to Jones, the credited songwriter on Monet’s music, Billboard reported, though it noted platforms like Spotify don’t have specific policies for how AI-generated songs can collect royalties, meaning they can generate revenue like any other song.
Chief Critics
Singer Kehlani slammed Xania Monet’s record deal in a since-deleted post on TikTok in September. “Nothing and no one on Earth will ever be able to justify AI to me,” Kehlani said, according to Billboard, stating she doesn’t respect the AI creation. She lamented that these AI acts make their music based on the copyrighted material AI generators are trained on without having to credit anyone. Terry McBride, co-founder and CEO of record label Nettwerk Music Group, told Billboard he would not have signed Xania Monet or any other AI artist. “That’s not going to be a touring entity as we know it,” McBride said, adding, “Even if it did hundreds of millions of streams, we have no interest in that.”
Tangent
The film industry is also grappling with AI-generated personas, notably the AI-generated “actress” Tilly Norwood, which was unveiled by an AI studio in September and quickly drew condemnation from the SAG-AFTRA actor’s guild. The union said “creativity is, and should remain, human-centered,” stating it is “opposed to the replacement of human performers by synthetics” which have “no life experience to draw from.” Other actors, including Whoopi Goldberg, Emily Blunt and Melissa Barrera also criticized this use of AI. The AI personality was created by Eline Van der Velden, who launched the AI talent studio Xicoia and claimed multiple film studios were interested in employing her creation. Like the AI-generated musicians, Tilly Norwood has an Instagram page with more than 65,000 followers that posts as if the AI actress is a real person.
Further Reading
SAG-AFTRA Condemns AI ‘Actress’ Tilly Norwood—Joins Critics Emily Blunt, Whoopi Goldberg And More (Forbes)
