Rea Gopane's success with his songs – Suka! has sparked multiple opinions about the use of AI and it's place in music. Our take is a question: Are these controversies only popping up because this time the music is actually good?
Firsty, we must first address this – we do not know how much of this song is AI. Has AI constructed this whole song with a few prompts? Has AI been a part of the process as a tool? AI can provide musicians with tools to create music. They use AI for multiple parts of the music creation. For example, isolating a vocal from a song can be done by Moises. The process of mastering a song can also be done through AI, much faster and cheaper than traditional methods – that can take up to weeks and have a a bunch of back and forths. Mastering is also done by super trained ears in studios that are very expensive to book the services from. AI definitely makes the creation of music at a global standard more accessible to artists that are younger & do not have the funds to pay for such services.
So while these tools do help make things faster, cheaper where does one draw the line? What does the line look like? Art is never complete from only the creator's side. Art exists when the viewer percieves it. In the case of Rea Gopane's - Suka! , Nginawe, these songs have garnered over 2 million streams on Spotify (Article written on 2 Feb , 2026). People love to listen to these soothing tracks that are so catchy. DJs love playing this to their crowds, at their events. This tune is also getting used for promotions at Piano People's London edition. Now the
"it's AI!" DJ Maphorisa posted on X. There seems to be a witch hunt mentality on the internet by media when they use language like "alleged use of AI" , " Rea Gopane accused of using AI" making it sound like a criminal thing to do. This isn't the first time we have seen purist tendencies show up in conversations about new technology in the music industry. Vinyl DJs don't find DJs that use Serato or CDJs real enough. Or how people accuse artists using Autotune being in some form inferior or unjust to artists that sing without it. We've seen this before.
Our question to you, the reader is, has this stopped you from listening to that catchy song from Don Toliver, Travis Scott, Asake? Did you measure the song in it's creation tools before you fell in love with it? Did it stop you from listening to the song when you discovered it was mastered in AI, or a sample was used from another artist?
The reason to ask these questions before getting into the actual fears of producers and the industry is to highlight the feelings of the consumers before we start hating on something. The rants online aren't going to take the love away, they're not going to reduce the streaming. If anything, they will only make more people curious about this & when they tune in and fall in love, it might make them rethink their stance on music that has used AI tools to be created. If we like it, we've stepped into new territory. If we don't like it, we can ignore Rea Gopane and move on to the side of music we're used to.
What are the fears that revolve around AI tools that are valid?
1. Will AI sample music without consent and infringe copyright more often?
We believe through AI & a digital footprint over the , we can actually track these infringements much faster than traditional methods.
2. Will the competition increase as AI can create and release music much faster and in larger volumes than traditional artists?
Very valid. In a world that has been only getting faster & cheaper from the times of the industrial revolution, we have gotten used to things getting more and more accessible. There are two parts to this, one being the obvious space where the audience cannot tell what is really happening & they're consuming mindlessly. Two, the love & appreciation of true artistry grows wilder and becomes the novelty. Like Rosalia's LUX or Asake's redbull symphonic. This will drive more attention to the human excellence and our optimistic hope is that people will seek out true human art and value it more than the AI ease they get on a daily. Platforms also have a stance that they take in this, Bandcamp has come out to say that they won't support selling music from AI artists and that makes sense for a platform like theirs. Whereas a platform like Spotify might not work the same but their way to compensate artists might change based on the percentage of AI being used in their artistry? Unsure how one can tell or detect it yet and that might be the concern that the industry holds.
3. Can we reward prompters equally as artists that put time and effort?
Another valid point. If the system is purely about how many streams does one artist get, AI audiences/ bots can drive up the streams too. We have seen a lot of artists buying bots to increase their streams and revenue based on that. The same way we might see prompters become prompt artists & this might lead to a new genre that we will have to learn to live with. Platforms can choose to reduce the revenue percentage based on how much AI was used to create the song. Was it merely a tool or the whole song was a prompt, this will need regulation & some level of understanding that the platforms can justify to the artists uploading this work.
What are your thoughts? How do you feel? Let us know in our comments or reach out to us via the contact page.
