Earlier this week, we reported on SZA’s fury with AI platforms like Suno, and the artists that collaborate with them. Her warning to other artists – all-caps tirade warning – was blunt: “DO NOT TRAIN AI [WITH] YOUR GENIUS,” as was her opinion on artists that support generative AI: “Your [sic] DISGUSTING and there’s NOTHING YOU COULD EVER SAY TO ME TO MAKE THIS OKAY […] I hope u have the life u deserve.” We urge SZA to get off the fence and tell us how she really feels.
That loud gnashing sound you can hear might be SZA’s teeth grinding as she reads the news that Suno has launched “a new incubator program designed to help independent artists bring their music projects to life through grants, mentorship, and dedicated marketing support.” It’s called Spark, and it’s open to unsigned indie singers, songwriters, or producers “releasing music under their own name”. Their music must “be made with Suno as part of the creative process and must live on Suno,” (although songs don’t need to be fully made on Suno) Artists retain commercial rights of their works, and songs can be released on other platforms.
It’s not clear what, or how much, the grant is – or how many of them there are, but it appears to be separate from the advertised “additional funding for marketing”. There will also be collaboration opportunities with “established artists at Suno writing camps.”
Unless SZA changes her tune, she also specifically cannot take part, because, as MBW spotted in Spark’s fine print, artists taking part agree to not badmouth Suno. A clause titled – yes – “Good Vibes Only,” explains that participants must agree that “during the Term and thereafter,” they “will not at any time make any statements or representations, either directly or indirectly, whether orally or in writing, that portrays Suno, Suno personnel, and/or any Suno products or services in a negative light.”
We’re partly making light of SZA’s hyperbole but there’s a serious point in all this: the use of generative AI is now a sore sticking point for some musicians, and a revolutionarily freeing tool for others. In between these two points remains an absence of widespread agreement: where is the “good” line between AI and human work? When is it fine to use AI-enabled tools, which ones are they, and how do we define that? What is good AI-platform collaboration? And when we get past the current early-stage deluge of AI music slop, who will the winners and losers really be?
One thing is clear: if we start losing artists like SZA as a result, the world is objectively worse off.
