Is that music real? Are you sure?

By Jess Santacroce
Music Writer, Phoenix Radio

On November 19, 1990. Milli Vanilli had their Grammy revoked, as it had been revealed that the people in the duo were not singing, but only lip-syncing to vocals provided by others people. Thirty-five years later, the fake musician hoax has only gotten worse, as today’s fake singers are fake in every sense of the word. That is, they are AI generated people singing AI generated songs.

 At least one AI generated musician is the project of a real human artist. Xania Monet, famous for songs such as “How was I supposed to know” and “She ain’t supposed to matter” is the AI avatar of poet Telisha “Nikki” Jones. In order to create Xania Monet and her songs, Jones started with her own real poetry. She uses the poetry as Xania Monet’s lyrics, relying on AI software to prompt a bot to form the background music, the voice, and the musican herself. 

Other artists who have been revealed to be AI generated in recent months are completely AI. While somebody had to have prompted a bot to create them, nothing else about them is human-generated. When “Walk my Walk” by someone using the stage name “Breaking Rust” topped the Billboard Country Digital Songs Chart, it was later revealed to be an AI generated artist prompted by Aubiere Rivaldo Taylor, someone who is often listed as a “songwriter” by AI-generated search results, but does not appear to have done more than use AI to generate songs. Another “new country singer” revealed to be AI generated, Cain Walker, does not even have anyone stepping forward to claim him as of the writing of this article. 

Most musicians and others who love and value music want to support their fellow artists rather than seeing their work ignored in favor of singing virtual robots. Since the technology is both new and growing increasingly sophisticated at an alarming rate, it can be difficult to tell if that “new artist” you’re listening to is a real person or not, but there are some signs to watch out for. 

Lyrics and images return high “AI generated” scores

Looking for signs that something is AI generated may seem pointless when you can just run things through AI content detectors. AI content detectors can be used for song lyrics, but something coming back with a high “AI generated” score is a sign that it’s AI generated, not proof. Running lyrics you suspect of being created by AI through a detector and getting a high score  means that you likely found something written by a bot, but it is not definitive proof, and it does not prove that the musician was also created by AI. While you can certainly run anything that seems “off” for any reason through one of these detector tools, look for other signs before you conclude that you have found the latest “fake musician” hoax. 

The artist appears from nowhere to the extreme

We often think musicians achieve national, or even local, fame suddenly “came out of nowhere.” But anyone who has ever even attempted to play music or sing, or knows somebody who has, is aware that you do not just jump up one day at random and become a musician. Everybody who plays or sings in front of others, online or offline, is going to have some type of career or practice history, often one spanning years or even decades. Even somebody who has been singing alone in their basement their entire life, and just got up the nerve to sing in front of people for the first time yesterday will have their name on a sign up sheet at the open mic, a friend or family member who used to hear them sing years ago, or an account on whatever platform they posted that first clip. AI-generated musicians go from nothing to a finished, produced, final cut of a track or even a video. 

Every photo or video of the musician shows signs of being AI generated

Despite growing more and more realistic, AI generated images and videos still have a bit of a “cartoonish” quality to them. Textures may be too smooth, giving skin and hair a “painted” look. AI is particularly bad at creating human hands. If you look closely at the photos of Cain Walker on his lyric videos, you can see that his fingers are oddly long and square shaped. Breaking Rust features a singer with much better produced hands, but his jaw movements when he’s shown singing are noticeably robotic. 

While it would be possible for a real artist to use AI to create their photos and videos, it becomes a red flag when every photo or video of an artist or band appears to be AI generated. 

Lyrics and music sound technically correct, but are bland or full of over-used phrasing, words, or themes

Clearly, whether something is “good music” or not is subjective. Plenty of people must have liked Breaking Rust’s “Walk My Walk,” or it wouldn’t have been downloaded enough to top a digital downloads chart. But even if you love the song, there’s no denying that it hits on more than a few rather tired country music stereotypes. The imagery centers around mud on clothes, rocks, boots and a worn hat. It rhymes “eyes” and “rise.” The theme appears to be that others can dislike the narrator, but they’re tough so they’re going to keep going, making it about the millionth country song to be about somebody being tough and keeping going. Other songs on the “artist’s” YouTube channel similarly heavily feature being scarred, getting up, and dust and dirt. 


The lead vocals are sung correctly, but by somebody with an emotionless or flat voice

Real singers have quirks and flaws in their voices, no matter how good of a singer they might be. They also experience human emotions that will be reflected in some way in the song. AI generated voices, like the one used for “Breaking Rust” can be programmed to be gravelly and deep, but they can never reflect a genuine reaction to what they’re singing. This is especially noticeable when listening to Xania Monet. The voice gets a bit more forceful on certain words and phrases, but never truly changes in any way, never breaks, never shows any sign of intensifying or shifting emotion, even when the lyrics, a real poet’s poetry, shift and change. 

There is no evidence of the musician doing anything but playing or singing on recorded tracks and filming videos. 

Keeping your personal page separate from your business page on social media is common, and is in fact a good business practice and safety measure, not a sign of being AI generated. There is also nothing wrong with, and nothing suspicious about someone choosing to only use social media, or even the internet overall, for their career and avoid it for anything personal. 

Still, the person must have done something in their life sometime other than record themselves singing or playing. If you type the name of a real local  musician into a search engine, the first several things that come up will likely be the pages where you can purchase their music, but you will also get links to interviews they’ve sat for, photos and/or of them performing live at various venues, and pictures of them from the social media pages of family and friends, at the very least. If audio and video recordings of their music appear to be all that exists of the person, they might be because they do not actually exist. 
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Stumbling across bands and solo artists you’ve never heard of before is great. Just make sure to do a  bit of research into anyone who displays any of these warning signs. And don’t forget to support local musicians you see performing and promoted in your hometown and places you visit offline too.