Timbaland Signs AI Artist - Is This The End of Human Musicians?

Legendary record producer Timbaland has signed an AI artist and immediately pissed off the entire internet. He clearly is looking at this as a businessman. AI is cheaper, it's faster, it's scalable, make music easier, make better music. Timbaland's response to all this backlash was to post this AI generated video. Pretty unhinged. This was not the move. It just boils down to like the business versus the art. AI artists are here. They are legitimately taking a piece of the pie in every sense of the word. So is this the end of human musicians? In the past week, legendary record producer Timbaland has signed an AI artist and immediately pissed off the entire internet, the entire independent artist community. So we thought we'd take this opportunity to talk about it because some people say it's the next big wave, and some people think it's the death of real music.

So yeah, this is something we had to something we gotta talk about, man. This is one of the most controversial topics that I feel like has come about in a while. So I am I'm scared slash excited to get into this shit. Buckle up, my friend. We're going to give you guys just some of the facts of what's happening, and then we'll kind of present both arguments as good podcaster journalist types should. We'll give you guys our takes on the matter, and then we'll leave you with some key takeaways that we think every independent artist should uh utilize. Yeah, because a lot of people are out there being like, what does this mean? For me. For me, you know? Yeah, but what about me? It is like exciting to get all riled up and you know, super passionate about it. Cause like there's people on both sides of the fence, like you said, that are just like very intense about this subject. Very. But it's more about like no matter kind of where you lie on the spectrum, you know, as far as your opinion goes on on AI in music. It is, we just want to at least share some thoughts around at the end of the episode about like what you can do and maybe should think about. 100%.

Love that. So let's start with some of the facts. Um, and if you get any value from this video, don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe to the channel. We just hit 10,000. Smash that bell icon, baby. We just hit 10,000 subscribers recently. And we didn't even oh I guess we made a post about it. We posted about it, but we are on our way to 100 now. So, you know, tell a friend to tell a friend, tell a friend. I love how you have 10,001 and you're on your way to 100,000. That's the next one. I don't know, milestone. Let's go. Let's go. You know what I'm saying? So he signed an artist. Um, he's naming it Tata. He has a new label called Stage Zero, that is an AI company. And he's calling it A-Pop. This is artificial pop. Oh, yeah. So he's trying to start a whole new genre, right? This is a brand new lane that he's trying to create with Tata. He's partnered with Suno, which is an AI music company owned by Amazon, I believe. And there's a lot of controversy around just Suno themselves. The main thing being they came out and said that they don't train their music on any copywritten music. They're not training their AI, sorry, on copywritten music.

And people were like, Well, how the hell are they like making these? So how are you coming up with all this? How does it work? AI-generated music. So they went to court. It's come out that they did, and they have they're in violation. They are they used copywritten music. Yeah, I do know that they've been in talks with now the major labels, right? So Suno has kind of come to the table being like, hey, majors, you know, let's do this shit the licensing way, like let us license your catalog, right? And that's caused a whole fucking, you know, whole other can of worms. But save that for another day. It's a whole other can. Right. But yeah, Suno's been in the news. They have. And this is who Timbaland has partnered with. So Timbaland announced his latest venture and got immediate backlash. I mean, some big names have come out. It's not only just people who have like come out and on their own platforms shared their opinion. So whether that's you know, tweets on on uh Twitter, whether that's Instagram, you know, videos, TikTok videos, um, YouTube videos, but more so it's like in the comments section, bro. So like every media platform, us now included, obviously, has been talking about this.

And I've just looked at the comments, and you see verified person after verified person after verified person with their own two cents. And then Timbaland's response to all this backlash was to post this AI generated video that we will now watch together. Whatever. Go ahead and cry me a river, since Timbo's stamp is on that too. Y'all cry about AI taking your spot, but your songs barely mix. Why would we train it on that? Man, y'all scared of AI, but record every hook and melody. Auto-tune is AI, baby. Y'all just didn't complain till it started writing better hooks than you. Timbo ain't the villain, he just not babysitting y'all no more. You want opportunity, but ain't got output. You worried about AI stealing your sound? Bro, you ain't got one. Wow. That's fair, dude. Wow. Who am I kidding? I ain't had no bars to begin with. It's okay. Pretty unhinged. I mean, shots fired basically at I hated this.

every point. This was not a good movie. I hated, oh, I loved that. I didn't know that these types of videos were able to be AI generate. This was crazy. It looks good. It looks insanely good. So shout out to the the uh animator that made the or the AI prompter, whatever the fucking word would be. Right. Uh but this this wasn't it. No, in my opinion. No, not at all. Especially because he's been going live on TikTok for the last year or so, reviewing independent artists' music, mostly trashing it, right? Yeah, right. Not a lot of good feedback. But he finds a gem every once in a while. But you know, it's been an interesting way that he's been connecting with independent artists. So to respond, you know, to the backlash with something like this saying, you know, all y'all songs are not mixed properly, uh, you have no bars, you have no sound is kind of crazy. By the way, autotune is not AI. I don't know where that came from. That just isn't AI. So before we even get into Timbo's response, I do think it's important for us to just like highlight kind of the arguments for for both of these, right? So on the Timbo's side, yes, and kind of the pro AI music side of the argument, right?

First of all, Timbo has been in a very successful entrepreneur recently, right? So he clearly is looking at this as a businessman. He sees the market opportunity, he sees the market trends, he sees where music has been going, right? Because there's been a surge in not only AI generated music, but also AI tools that are helping musicians, you know, make music easier, make better music, right? Like in improve their workflow, whatever. So I mean, what what has Timbo said, right? And just the pro AI people, what what do you think, or how would you sum up their There's been some unhinged quotes for sure. Okay. I think he's gone as far as saying that some AI has more soul than humans, which is wild. But the idea is that there's not an artist who maybe won't want to do something, right? Or doesn't feel like working today, or you know, our friend Ray Daniels, who we had on the podcast, uh he post Timbo posted him talking one of his classic in the car clips. He uh quoted um Jimmy Iovine saying, like, get you an artist that doesn't talk back.

Timbo, who has super producer, super producer, who has I see helping as many artists as he can decides he's going to play in the AI world, which why the fuck wouldn't you? Like, let's let me tell you what an AI thing is. Let me tell you what an AI character is. Mickey Mouse is an AI character. Donald Duck is an AI character. Bugs Bunny is an AI character. You guys are looking at it wrong. He's gonna make a character that he can have sing songs and things of that nature, sell products. That's all these cartoonists and all these uh young kids' TV shows are doing anyway. So why y'all mad at him? Plus, do you know how hard it is to push an artist? They're gonna tell you I wanna do that. Jimmy Iovine famously told me one day, get you something that don't talk back. What is better than an AI artist that don't talk back? And we're still mad at him. Wow, which I like I get it, but like that is not how the way to present that argument. I think, you know, it's a little it's a little rough. Yeah, I mean, because look, a lot of y'all artists out there, y'all aren't the easiest to work with sometimes, right? We've interviewed a ton of managers, record label executives.

There's a reason why sometimes there's some tension between you creatives and the business people, right? So I like can understand maybe where some of those sentiments are are coming from, but I think it's also why you guys make the fucking best music in the goddamn world. Let's go. And no fucking robots ever gonna touch y'all. And then but the other arguments though is that AI is potentially cheaper, it's faster, it's scalable, right? I mean, think about any company in the world that needs music. Why wouldn't they experiment with something like this as a business? You know, I think just like everything that we talk about, I really do think it just boils down to like the business versus the art, and they're just butting heads again right in front of our eyes, you know? Yeah. Oh man. And so, okay, so there's obviously people, like you said, that have come out of the woodwork and really voiced their opinion on like why this was not the move. Yes. Right. And so I do want to now kind of get back to the you know response video. Cause I do think that like Timbaland announcing his um his venture was one thing, but I for sure was scrolling the comments on this video specifically.

And this really is what I think rubbed people the the most wrong way, right? It was already pretty bad, but this definitely made it worse. This in my mind is what really took it up a notch. Like as far as like the the response back to Timbaland's response, right? Um and for me, a lot of the people are just looking at his influence, right? If you look at someone like a Timbaland, OG, he's an OG, right? He's been in the game for shit 30 plus years. Yep. He's crafted some of the most unique human, authentic sounds of the last, like I said, three decades. Um, and so I think that a lot of people are looking at him being like, hey man, like you could have used your influence and your position in the market and your platform that you've built, um, right, and the credibility that that you've established with everyone in in the game, you could have used it for good. Like they almost like you could have used it for good and you used it for evil. You reviewed people's music for a year.

You found some great shit. You didn't sign any of them. You know what I mean? You signed an AI artist. And he's obviously come out and said that he's not training his AI on any of these people's music. Bullshit. But you're also partnered with Suno, who's in court right now for the exact same thing. What if you had to bet money? I don't want to go there. No, come on, bro. It's super, I mean, it's it makes sense that he would, but I he said he didn't, so I'm not gonna accuse him until the facts come out otherwise. You're giving the king the benefit of the doubt. The benefit of the doubt, but I'm skeptical. Innocent until proven guilty. We are still in America. This is America. I mean, who are we to judge until he's in a, you know, in front of 12 of his peers. Sure he is. of his peers. Absolutely. I hate to interrupt this episode, but guys, I got one thing on the mind right now, and it's data. I can't stop thinking about it. All the artists in 2024 are winning because of data. They know who their fans are, they have access to their fans. Do you? Spotify's not telling you who your fans are. Apple Music ain't telling you who your fans are.

But our friends over at DistroKid created a feature called HyperFollow. Every single release, you can set up a pre-save campaign with a HyperFollow and get access to every single fan's email address. Now you can let them know when you have a show coming up, when you're dropping exclusive merch, when you're going live. And without the data, you're just bound by the algorithms of TikTok, Instagram, YouTube. No more relying on those platforms. We're going straight to our fans. DistroKid is the best DIY distributor. You can upload unlimited music for a ridiculously low rate. And you're gonna have access to features like HyperFollow. OMTdistro.com. You're gonna get 30% off when you sign up for DistroKid, and you can start collecting your fans' data today. Henry, let's get back into it. Oh So some of the other arguments, yeah, against what's happening. Okay. Right? Um, people are worried that this could wipe out like human musicians. What do you how do you like just initially respond to that type of fear? I think that AI artists are here. I think they're coming, and I think they are legitimately taking a piece of the pie in every sense of the word.

They're gonna, you know, there's only a hundred spots on billboard, right? There's only so many playlist spots. There's only so many hours in the day that consumers consume music. There's only so many Grammy awards. Imagine the first AI artist to win a Grammy, bro. I didn't even go to like accolades. Think about it. I didn't even go to accolades, bro. I'm saying, like, there is, you know, there's limited attention in places and people to listen to. So they're gonna take some of that. So yeah, it they're a viable. Say they, it's insane. I don't know. I mean, AI artists are are a viable competitor. They are. They're they're go they're going to come for your fans. Yep. They're going to come for the listens, the streams, the views, the shit, the concert ticket sales, the merch. They're gonna go for it all, bro. Yes. And I do think that insert any businessman that happens to have been a musician, right? Like Timbaland is the first and like the biggest, but like it was gonna happen, bro. You could have inserted any fucking name attached to this type of venture, and it would have caused like kind of the same uh argument in my mind. Like I said, I think he gets a little bit more flack because of his like his tenure in the game and like what he has done with like the Missys, the Justin Timberlakes, et cetera, right?

And the main thing that makes it even crazier is the potential for AI to be trained on people's music without their consent, because this is clearly like a copyright violation, but there's no real laws around this yet. We're kind of in the wild, wild west of this shit. Dude, we're in the Napster version of like AI music right now. And it's completely not okay, like super violation in my mind. I'm hopeful it's going to work itself out, just like no matter your fucking views on Spotify and DSPs and how much you get paid or don't get paid. That's a whole other fucking thing. It worked out. But at least something. At least you do get paid. No one is, I say no one with an asterisk. Most people are not just like pirating music and like who needs, you, don't need to do that. It's up on YouTube if you're free 99, it's up on Spotify. You can have free tiers of Spotify. You can pay you know a nominal quote unquote fee for unlimited fucking music, right? So we we figured that out. I do think we're gonna figure out this part of it.

It's gonna take some time, but uh, it is gonna take time to make it a good thing. And people are gonna get taken advantage of in the meantime. We don't know how it's gonna end up. No, it could be bad. We don't know how bad it's gonna fucking be. We don't know that, yeah. But I am hopeful at least, like your music won't be just stolen and not and you won't be compensated at all. I don't think that's gonna last forever. Agreed. So what are you what are your overall what's your stance? Fuck you, Henry Home. Why do I have to go first in these? We said we had we need to be taking stances in these episodes, yeah. And now you're pointing at me to go first. That's correct. Um, no, man. Look, here's what it is. I think it does come back to the whole uh acknowledging the competition here, right? You there's already been virtual artists. We interviewed someone who's been, you know, tied to like someone who made a virtual artist, right? So, like we've kind of gone down that road. Um, and so in my mind, it's more like as human artists. I do not think that you're going to be wiped off the fucking face of the earth. So I want to just like calm every uh cool everyone's jets a little bit with like we don't need to like go jump off a tall building yet.

Um, but I do think that we have to acknowledge it's here, and we need to now more than ever, we need to lean into our human authenticity, right? So I think my stance on AI, you know, artists is that like I I don't ever think I'm gonna be a fan of AI artists, right? I I don't think that I'm gonna be able to like relate and build this like super strong deep connection as a consumer as a fan of music. I don't think that I'm going to do that. So if I'm not gonna do that, I think there's gonna be a huge population of people who just aren't gonna be about it, right? I think we're a long ways away from it being the norm and it being like the majority, but I do think that it's you know, I mean it's there are gonna be people that are that. You know what I mean? There's people who watch anime, yeah, and they don't connect with real actors as much. Yeah, and it's happening. And I just think like this is art, this is creativity. Like, if someone wants to like really master the art and the creative side of prompting, and like I mean, that video that we watched with with Timbaland's response, it was insane. Took some creativity, took some fucking creativity, bro.

I don't know if it's just words that then turn into visuals or however it's made. I don't even know the science behind how it's made or the creative process behind how it's made. Yeah, but like there's still some art to like technology, right? So I do think that like we're not anti-AI. No, I'm not anti-AI. And as a matter of fact, we're going to be doing an episode on AI tools that every independent artist could be using. Stay tuned for that. Yeah, because that is not even negotiable. You all should be using AI to your advantage. Yes. But no, as far as just my general stance, man, like I'm not as mad about it as everyone else is. Like, I think the way Timbaland reacted in this specific scenario was like kind of like heartless and and cold and just you know, just not empathetic at all to the same community that to your point has like built his platform up, has paid him, right? Like that he's profited from. Like, so that kind of pissed me off. But as far as just like AI artists, I look at it like anything else.

Why the fuck do I I mean, this goes to my like socioeconomic political views too? It's like you can do whatever the fuck you want. Like, if someone wants to make AI music, why why are we mad at that? Why do we why are we mad at that? You can still make your music the way you want to make it. And I think that you should love and enjoy that process. And if that gives you, you know, the creative outlet that you need to do it in a certain way. It's the same thing though, about like some producers used to literally make music with session players only, and then they started using a DAW, right? So were we were we all you know hot and bothered about that? Like, not really, right? Maybe initially, but we all kind of got used to the fact that everyone's in FL, everyone's in logic, and everyone's in fucking able to. The horse carriage industry was pissed off when Henry Ford came along and made this thing called the car. Yeah, so so I I look at it like do whatever the fuck you want. Yeah. Right. And I'm not mad at them. I'm not mad at Timbaland even for doing an AI like an AI company and signing an AI artist. I'm really not that pissed off about it.

I think it was not tactful though, the way that he did it. And I do think that like it would have been cool of him to sign one of these thousands of artists that have joined his lives that have paid him money to review his music, et cetera, et cetera. Um that's kind of my general stance. I don't know. I mean, what do you think? What makes me a little bit more upset is that, and just kind of concerned is that he is someone that a lot of people look up to, right? Exactly. It's it is the influence then. He's going to influence a lot of people, and this also is what kind of grinds my gears with Suno is they market this shit like anybody can do this. It's taking all the friction away. Get a master track in two fucking minutes, which we don't need more of that at all. The thing that pissed me off the most is the interview with the CEO of Suno. This one. Let's just watch the first three seconds of that clip real quick. It's not really enjoyable to make music now. Uh why'd you say that?

It takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of practice. You need to get really good at an instrument or really good at a piece of production software. I think the majority of people don't enjoy the majority of the time they spend making music. Okay. That's insane. Okay. Fuck this. So if you if you don't enjoy making music, please, please stop making music. Just don't even do it. Like the journey and the taking the time that it takes, like, that is the fun part. And if it's not for you, I don't think you need to be looking for some brand new AI tool to make that not shitty. You need to not be doing it at all, is my stance on that. So Suno, very questionable company. Not sure about this fucking guy right here. But um, I think a lot of what you said about like the humanity leading into humanity, that is gonna be what separates you guys and gives you your advantage. We've talked about this before the whole AI thing. It's like you and your story, your emotion, your perspective on life is already what makes you you and what makes you stand out. So now more than ever, that is what we need to be thinking about in our music, in our content, our marketing, our branding, the whole thing, man.

Like that is one thing that AI is not gonna be able to have. Can they like put themselves on Mars with you know laser guns and do other crazy shit? Sure, but can they have these like human experiences and emotions? They can't. So that's what y'all need to be thinking about. You know what's kind of interesting, man? Like, you know, you say this a lot on the podcast, and like it kind of sounds cliche sometimes when you say it, I'm gonna be honest, but like I think it really rings true here. Like, y'all are really creative, right? Like, our community is like some of the most creative fucking people out there, right? But they're not always as creative with their business, is what you kind of say a lot, right? And it kind of is like, ah, okay, Henry, you're saying that again. Jesus Christ. I'm driving that shit home, baby. I'm like, Jesus Christ. Like until I see y'all being more creative with your business. If this guy says it one more time, then I'll shut up. Fucking kill this guy. Um, but I do almost think, you know, I was kind of hinting at this before. There's some creativity to this whole AI thing, man. So I think when we, you know, you know, we kind of wanted to give some recommendations right here, you know, towards the end of the episode about like how they can be like what's what how can they be like doing this properly, or like how what are some like action items or like advice that we can give around this whole topic.

I would say like try it out, like try some things out. Just like be open-minded. Like, I just like think if you have an open mind with how it can help you in your own, like if you if you if I know y'all at all, I think your main goal is to make music that you want the world to hear, right? I mean, is that just like kind of what we're all here? I think so. And of course, here on the One More Time Podcast, you're probably trying to then monetize that. And and or at least make a living making music that you want people to hear. That's like the the whole thing we're doing here, right? So in my mind, let's not be so like some of the responses, bro, to Timbaland just pissed me off too. Super shut down. They were just like closed door policy of like, bro, you're not even willing to consider any of this. Yeah, that that pissed me off too. As much as like the Timbaland response video, like I said earlier on, that pissed me the fuck off too. That was not it. But some of y'alls and I say y'all, maybe not anyone listening to this, but maybe some of y'all, some of your responses to Timbaland's whole thing were also almost equally on the other side of the spectrum of like you it reminded me of like people who were internet naysayers before the internet became a fucking thing, right? Like, let's not be so anti and closed-minded to this shit, right?

So I think, you know, A, we are gonna drop an episode about like AI tools that you can be using that will just help your music business and your music career, right? So not so much on the like music making side. We do still want to like empower human musicianship, whatever, but there are ways you can be utilizing AI as a whole to do things better as an independent artist, right? Um, but yeah, man, I think also just on the creative side though, like be open-minded to it, man. Like And I would I would add stay informed and like really keep up with what's going on in the industry now more than ever, it's moving very fast. And just keeping a thumb on the pulse, yes, I think is gonna go a long way. For sure. And then I think, you know, you mentioned it before, figuring out what it is that makes you you. Yes, like this is it's more important than ever. It's shit we've preached forever. We've had music marketing guru after music marketing guru on the podcast, talking about talk about the same shit, right? Um, but it really is about what's your brand, what's your story, how are you telling it?

How can you connect with your community, right? How can you build community? It's gonna be difficult, at least for the short term. I think they're gonna get better and better at it, right? AI artists are gonna get better and better at like building community and being fucking human like, but oh, they're gonna go on tour, but they're gonna be insane. But they're not there yet, right? So live events, human to human interaction, uh, you know, fucking video messaging your fans, doing shit that just like doing podcasts, like doing media runs, whatever, like doing the things that like AI artists just aren't going to do yet. Yes. So, like right now, we're in this limbo period where we're not full send AI, that the tech's just not there yet, right? Like, people are thinking it's corny and it's not gonna be, you know, something that people are gonna love at the at the beginning. It's gonna maybe get there. I don't know what the future holds for that. But right now we're in that period of limbo where like you can still lean into the human, you know, the the the uh humanity thing and that's the competitive advantage here. That is how you differentiate against any ta-ta fucking AI artist that Timbo might sign.

Um that that's that's that's that's where I think they need to go for sure. So is this the end of human musicians? Hell no I don't think so. Hell nah but this is the beginning of you stepping up a little bit and going real hard with your career. We want you guys to make it. Thanks again for tuning in. Please like, comment, and subscribe and we'll see you next next time. Peace.