Producer defends the use of artificial intelligence, while artists and producers spoke out against these tools
Article published on March 19, 2025 at Rolling Stone. To read the original in English, click here.
Not long ago, Timbaland He thought he was exhausted. Since the mid-1990s, he has repeatedly reinvented R&B, hip hop and pop, mixing classics of names like Aaliyah, Justin Timberlake and Jay-z with quick beats, synthesizers and their affront to samples and hooks.
At 54, however, the producer was concerned with aging without innovating. “I thought it was over,” he says Timbalandsitting at the sunny studio of his mansion in Miami. “Music is a young sport. I’m the best, right? One of the best producers of all time. I know how to do the battery, but something about it doesn’t reach the same way in this generation.”
Then, Timbaland he knew Baby Timbo. This is the nickname he gave to Sunthe powerful and controversial artificial intelligence music generator who currently faces a process brought by all major record labels in the recipients using copyright music in his training data.
The producer is enthusiastic about the program’s abilities and recently signed as a creative consultant for the startup.
You can release great songs in minutes. I always wanted to do what Quincy Jones did with Thriller of Michael Jackson When he had [quase] 50 years. So my Thrillerfor me, it is this tool. God introduced me to this tool. I probably did a thousand beats in three months, and many of them-not all-are hits, and from all genres you can imagine … I just made four K-pop songs this morning! “
These thousand beats and songs are just the ones that Timbaland He considers worthy of being kept – he selected them among more than 50,000 generations of songs in the show. “It’s still my taste,” he says. “I don’t need to play. I can just know what I want to hear.”
See this photo on InstagramA publication shared by Timbo The King (@timbaland)
When the Sun It was released at the end of 2023, it was purely a music app for music: you typed a description, wrote some lyrics or made the application create them for you, and a song appeared. Although this approach remains, it has evolved to include more sophisticated options, and the Timbaland Use one of them exclusively: a beta feature called “Cover Songs”, which allows you to carry beats or songs from your own creation and then use the Sun To generate endless variations of them, in all imaginable genres.
Timbo give to Baby Timbo Tracks from your vast file of beats and ideas of new music, or more recent creations, and releases it to reinvent them.
Timbaland It is one of the only big names in music to recognize the use, and go beyond defending the use of general AI tools. He is going against not only a massive process – that the industry also moved against a competitor of the program, the Sidio – but also a major reaction from the artistic community.
In April 2024, more than 200 musicians, including Billie Eilish, Nicki Minaj and Stevie Wondersigned an open letter denouncing AI music. “Some of the largest and most powerful companies are using I would replace human artists, violating our rights and corroding the value of our work,” they wrote, demanding that technology companies “cease the use of artificial intelligence was going to infringe and devalue human artists’ rights.”
In February, more than 1,000 UK artists – including Kate Bush, Damon Albran and Annie Lennox – They released a silent “album” Is this what we want?to protest against the laws proposed in their country that would allow AI companies to train in copyright protected material without the consent of the artists.
“The British government should not legalize music theft to benefit AI companies,” they said collectively while Bush He asked, “In the music of the future, will not our voices heard?” In a sign of how taboo these tools are, one of the only other prominent producers talking about using them lately is Kanye Westbetween speeches in which he proudly proclaims a Nazi.
Timbaland does not bother at all with the disapproval of his colleagues and has no problem with the Sun Using millions of copyright protected songs to train your AI. “You’re talking about copyright and that or that. No, man, it’s theory. It’s learning what is touched on earth … if you have no knowledge, how could you give you the answer? Then you have to make known to him. And that’s all. Knowledge of musicality.” He says musicians should work with AI companies to “find out, like, how do we inspire it? And that can be resolved.”
The producer also has little patience for the idea that AI tools can replace human jobs in music – he continues to use subcontracted producers and external composers and lyricists anyway.
The tool will raise the work. It will not simply operate on its own. You can give you something you have never thought, and it becomes the biggest record of your life. Will you criticize it then? … I never want to remove humans than they do. I just want to inspire them to do more. “
He compares the resistance of the artists to the initial suspicion of self-tune vocals in the 2000s. “It was something big, to the point of Jay-z to do ‘Death of Auto-Tune’“He says with a laugh.” Come on. T-Pain It was the only one to intervene. Just as I’m doing it. T-Pain stood out alone. ”
The current creative partner of Timbaland, Zayd Portilloan intelligent and enthusiastic young man in the early twenties, goes to the computer at a table in the corner and begins to demonstrate his workflow.
He plays an idea of music that Timbaland Created in 2010-a rampant, click-click beat, a murmured hook that he himself sang with a vaguely oriental cadence and a false instrumental against his voice that is actually his voice. They carried it in Sun And, using the “Cover-Song” function, they generated variations, using prompts with simple gender descriptions. (Timbaland insists that I do not publish your complete real writing – they may not have copyright, but prompts are now property that he is trying to protect: “They are the sauce!”).
In the “covers” generated by the tool, AI transforms its hummed against guitar lines or beautiful female voices, developing music in various genres, all with vocalists generated by machine singing letters without vowel sound that are not exactly in English or any other language.
Portillo And an external composer made some letters to one of these iterations, a vibrant low R&B. So they performed the Cover-Song function again in that version, connecting the new lyrics to the interface-and they got what they consider to be a finished song, with a sensual female vocalist that does not exist. “Writers have all power,” he argues Portillo. They do not oppose the idea of simply releasing the version there, but they can also send such music to an artist and make it make their own version of vocals. Timbaland He says he is already trying to make renowned artists record some of these creations.
They demonstrate even more wild approaches. Timbaland took an unpaid song that he made with Busta Rhymes and used the “cover-sun” function to generate a modern version of reggae, with a female voice toasting in a version of the flow of Rhymesstill using the letters of rap legend.
Timbaland sent to Rhymes And he suggested that he reject his own verses, turning it into a duet with the AI. “I played for a video call and he freaked out,” he says Timbaland.
So far, the undeniable skills of AI music generators have been reflected in the charts only through a counteraction. Beyoncésaid he embraced the organic sound of his winner from Album of the year, Cowboy Carteras a direct response to technology: “The more I see the world evolving, the more I feel a deeper connection with purity. Amid the artificial intelligence, filters and digital programming, I wanted to go back to real instruments, and used very old instruments.”
The biggest music of recent months, “Die with a Smile”from Lady Gaga and Bruno Marswas recorded live in the studio with a real band. “It is no coincidence that, along with all this instrumentation live, is the rise of the AI,” said the producer, Andrew Watt. “People get like, ‘ok, computers are getting so good that they can do these other things. What’s the most real and raw thing they can’t do?'”
But Timbaland has little patience for this feeling. “If you listen and feel good, how is it losing humanity?” He asks, raising his voice in frustration. “Why are you blaming yourself for something that is in your body, what do you feel?”
+++ Read more: Kate Bush, Damon Albarn and more than 1,000 artists release silent album against AI laws
+++ Read more: like Timbaland, the largest producer of his generation, became addicted to medicines and almost lost everything
+++ Read more: Céline Dion’s warning about ‘fake’ songs generated by
Source: Rollingstone
Earl Johnson is a music writer at Gossipify, known for his in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the industry. A graduate of USC with a degree in Music, he brings years of experience and passion to his writing. He covers the latest releases and trends, always on the lookout for the next big thing in music.
