Suno Is the New Auto-Tune for Artists Going Viral

Summary

Masked artists Kilo Kent and Zemi have attracted substantial attention on TikTok and streaming platforms with polished music and AI-generated visual identities, prompting listeners to question whether the artists are synthetic. Both say they are real musicians who use Suno mainly to modify their vocals: Zemi says he writes and sings the songs, produces the beats, and mixes the results himself, while Kilo describes Suno as one tool in a broader human process. They are signed to Isekai Records, a label that markets itself as skilled at converting social-media attention into streams. The label previously re-released producer Haven’s controversial song after Spotify removed a version that allegedly used AI to impersonate Jorja Smith; the human-vocal version has since surpassed 250 million streams. Music technology scholar Oliver Bown says AI-assisted and AI-generated music are better understood as a continuum, and warns that anonymous artist personas can become cynical commercial commodities or enable more centralized control over culture. The article also links AI music to data-centre resource use, unauthorized voice appropriation, and cultural-appropriation concerns. Isekai’s attempt to vet or stop the article deepened questions about the project’s secrecy. The feature concludes that AI use in music is unlikely to disappear, but artists relying on hidden identities and vague marketing face a difficult task convincing audiences that their work is meaningfully human-led.