AI Artist Makes Billboard History & Sparks Debate About R&B's Future
AI Artist Makes Billboard History & Sparks Debate About R&B’s Future
Artificial intelligence just earned a new kind of credit on the charts.
An AI-generated artist named Xania Monet has officially become the first virtual performer to debut on a Billboard radio chart, landing at No. 30 on the Adult R&B Airplay list this week. Her single, “How Was I Supposed to Know?”, also grabbed the top spot on the R&B Digital Song Sales chart and has floated across Hot Gospel Songs, Hot R&B Songs, and Emerging Artists since the summer.
According to Billboard, Monet’s catalog has already pulled in more than 44 million U.S. streams, roughly $52,000 in revenue in just a few months. Behind the digital artist is Telisha “Nikki” Jones, a Mississippi-born poet who teamed up with music-generation platform Suno to create Monet’s voice and lyrics. Her Apple Music bio describes her as “a contemporary R&B vocalist,” and that identity just scored a multimillion-dollar record deal with Hallwood Media after what insiders called a “bidding war.”
But not everyone’s celebrating this new chapter in music. Singer Kehlani voiced frustration in a now-deleted TikTok video, saying, “There is an AI R&B artist who just signed a multimillion-dollar deal … and the person is doing none of the work.”
Monet’s team says that’s not the point. “AI doesn’t replace the artist,” said her manager Romel Murphy in an interview with CNN. “It’s a new frontier. Like any change, some people are receptive and some are apprehensive, but it doesn’t take away from the human experience.”
For some, that human experience is exactly what’s at stake. As AI climbs the charts, the question remains: Will technology help evolve R&B or start to rewrite its soul?
