Bella Kay, Slayyyter and Trueno: Photos From the Billboard Cover Shoot

“You can always kind of tell, right?” Slayyyter asks Bella Kay, raising her hands off her crossed legs as a grin creeps across her face. “I can always clock when it’s AI.”

Bella giggles into her cupped palms, explaining that for her, a song’s structure is usually the dead giveaway that it wasn’t human-made. “There will be, like, five choruses!” she exclaims, her orange curls shaking from her laughter.

“If you really listen, the lyrics will always be something so random,” Slayyyter continues. She sings in a mock-tender voice: “ ‘And we fall-l-l-l down/And we’re in love/And we fall-l-l-l again.’ You’ll be like, ‘What? Huh?’ ”

Sitting to their left, Trueno chuckles at Slayyyter’s fake fake song, then rubs his hands together and weighs in on the bigger picture. “If you want to be an artist, you have to be a little crazy,” he explains, bouncing his index fingers off his temples. “The robots don’t have this mentality.”

Sitting to their left, Trueno chuckles at Slayyyter’s fake fake song, then rubs his hands together and weighs in on the bigger picture. “If you want to be an artist, you have to be a little crazy,” he explains, bouncing his index fingers off his temples. “The robots don’t have this mentality.”

In today’s music industry, rising stars not only have to stand out in a crowded field of human hopefuls — they must outshine their AI-­generated competition, too. And while Bella, Trueno and Slayyyter — gathered together in Los Angeles in early July, midway through a transformative year for each of them professionally — couldn’t seem more different on the surface, they’re united by an ethos paramount to all of their artistries: leaning into their own (very real) voices, above all else.

Read the full Bella Kay, Slayyyter and Trueno cover story here.