2025 was the first year that AI-generated music hit the Billboard, TikTok and Spotify charts. Whether it was “A Million Colors” by Vinih Pray cracking the TikTok Viral 50, “We Are Charlie Kirk” by Spalexma making it to the Spotify U.S. chart, Xania Monet’s “How Was I Supposed To Know” hitting the Billboard Hot R&B Songs chart and Breaking Rust’s “Walk My Walk” landing on the Country Digital Song Sales chart, the fast-growing popularity of certain AI tracks signaled what is likely to become a new normal in the music business.
The emergence of AI songs brings up divisive questions. How should streaming services and charts, including Billboard, treat these songs? Should charts and playlists be a neutral playing field for whatever songs are popular — no matter how they are made — or should there be two distinct destinations for AI and human-made works?
These questions are made even more challenging when considering the growth of songs that fall more into the gray area in between human and AI works — ones that weave human-made and AI-made portions into the same song.
To debate these topics, Black Music Artists’ Coalition president/CEO, Willie “Prophet” Stiggers, and Monet’s manager and founder of dai+drm, Romel Murphy, joined Billboard to share their differing points of view. Stiggers shares the perspective that “AI-generated artists shouldn’t be on the same charts as human beings,” while Murphy feels they should.
The duo also discuss about how radio should treat AI artists as well, referencing iHeartRadio’s new policy “Guaranteed Human,” which effectively banned most AI songs as well as AI radio personalities and podcasts from its airwaves nationwide — a policy that pulled Monet’s own songs from radio just weeks ago.
Watch their conversation below.
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