An artificial intelligent (AI) R&B singer known as “Xania Monet” received a three million dollar record deal through Hallwood Media in 2025. The project’s face is a made-up person created by a poet named Telisha “Nikki” Jones using AI music generation software called Suno. Discovering this record deal and the project itself was very disheartening to me, so I did what anyone would. I found Nikki’s Instagram and started debating her on the ethics of AI use in art. Long story short, she ended up blocking me on the app and left some very unprofessional words in my direct messages when confronted.
R&B stars Kehlani and SZA have both spoken out against Xania Monet and how disappointing they find the project. As prominent artists in the R&B genre, both have negative opinions on the subject. SZA posted a rant on Instagram about how AI image generation affects communities and artists, followed by a picture of Xania Monet and her multimillion-dollar record deal, captioned “Ion fw this either why devalue our music ??? Something tells me they wouldn’t do this with another genre.” The caption discreetly alludes to the potential negative influence on Black female artists specifically. Kehlani spoke up in a video saying no one will be able to justify AI: “Especially in the **** performing arts, in which people have worked hard for, trained for, slept on the floor for, **** got injuries for, worked for their entire lives. Sorry, I don’t respect it.” Telisha “Nikki” Jones was confronted about Kehlani’s video on CBS news where she simply stated that “everyone is entitled to their own opinion.”
So how did I get myself blocked? It started this summer when I did my own research on Jones’ “Xania Monet” account. I wrote a statement sharing my opinion on the music, because as a musician in the industry I have every right to comment on what music I like or dislike. I somewhat angrily called her out for turning off comments on all her accounts, so no one could express their opinions. I posted that she shouldn’t be able to call herself a poet because anything she does write gets invalidated by the fact she immediately feeds it to Suno and calls herself a musician. For anyone unaware, Suno generates music with a prompt. As demonstrated on CBS, all she does is write “R&B song” and “female vocal,” adds her poetry and gets her multimillion-dollar music. I confronted her for taking credit for the creation process that artists find sacred and ritualistic and implored her to explore her own identity and creative process. The end of my post was a call to action asking consumers to understand they deserve better, and discussed the bigger picture of the importance of art at this time.
Of course I did not expect her to see it. She is far too rich and famous to be viewing Instagram stories that tag her, right? And yet, I received direct messages from her and got interested in having a conversation about her opinions on the matter. I got something much different. “Lmao you so mad. Slaw ass music maybe you should use AI turd.” Then she told me I shouldn’t have been born. That was the response I got from a multimillion-dollar contract holder and R&B Top 30 “artist.” She immediately blocked me on Instagram.
I didn’t expect much from her. In fact, I didn’t expect anything. But being called a turd by someone who should be PR-trained by now surprised me. I was also not expecting her to listen to my music, that was a lot of effort and time from someone who uses such a low-effort approach to making her own music. For someone doing something worth so much money and so publicized, she does NOT take kindly to critics. I am currently working on a video project that will explain this situation in greater detail. Hopefully she unblocks me soon so I can continue to press her for more quips.
