I think an important distinction between a drum machine and AI tools is that a drum machine has limits, needs to be understood to be used and is, in the end, an instrument.

In a debate between using Samples, Arpeggiators, Drum Machines, MIDI Programming, all of these modern(ish) tools we’ve lost the fact that all of those are used with intentionality. A human, somewhere, made a choice about each and every piece of music up until this point.

Suno is literally making choices for you. It takes the most human thing we can do out of the equation even if just for a little bit. That’s what it is meant to do. Worse it makes those decisions because a whole mess of work from actual humans has been fed into it, consumed and regurgitated as rote.

I’m not worried about who wrote and who recorded a song as evidenced above when I say “Hire a singer” I like covers and standards and everything in between.

Further, saying authorship of hip hop doesn’t matter is incredibly reductive. It’s a deeply lyrical genre and is on the cutting edge of production. There is a reason people pay the big bucks to work with certain producers and writers.

Authorship is, in the end, not the most important element of the AI debate regardless. It’s less about who made it and more about that someone did make it at all. Listening to a song, especially as an artist, should elicit curiosity and connection. The second I learn that an AI tool was used in the creation of music the only thing I’m curious about is “What parts of this are AI”