Cassper Nyovest Warns AI Music Could Hurt New Artists

South African rapper and entrepreneur Cassper Nyovest has shared his honest thoughts on the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in the music industry. While he admits that he has grown to love the hit single Suka!, Cassper believes that AI-generated music could become a serious problem, especially for upcoming artists who are still trying to make a name for themselves.

The song Suka! has been trending heavily on social media platforms, especially TikTok. Many people were surprised to learn that the popular track by Rea Gopane is AI-generated. Former podcaster Rea Gopane recently climbed the trends list after his AI-generated song Suka! gained thousands of monthly listeners on streaming platforms. The song even reached number one on Apple Music South Africa’s Top 100 chart, a major achievement that many human artists struggle to reach.

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Cassper Nyovest reacted to this trend by sharing a video on his Instagram, where he openly spoke about how AI music affected him as a musician. He revealed that even he was fooled by the song at first.

“It fooled me, and I’m a professional musician. One of the things that’s exciting about music is discovering new music and new artists,” he said.

Cassper explained that when he first heard Suka!, he believed it was created by a fresh new talent in the industry. “I thought that was a new artist, a new vocalist, a new producer that I had never heard of,” he added. This experience made him realise how powerful and convincing AI-generated music can be.

While Cassper does not believe AI is a big threat to artists who are already well established, he feels strongly that it could damage the dreams of upcoming musicians. “I see the dangers of it. I don’t think it’s a threat to people who are established. We’re good, but I really see it being a problem for new artists trying to break into the market,” he explained.

He also shared concerns about how AI music could be used by big companies. Cassper warned that if AI can produce music consistently, record labels might choose technology over real artists. “Because if they can make music like that consistently, it’s a problem, because I feel like AI music might be powered by record labels that don’t want to pay and deal with artists anymore.”