Iconic 2000s producer and artist Timbaland takes AI a step further than most by launching a dedicated AI music label. However, fans aren’t impressed by his new venture.
What is Timbaland’s new AI music label?
Timbaland’s AI music label, Stage Zero, has already signed an artist: TaTa, a singer created by Suno AI.
“[TaTa] is not an avatar. She is not a character. TaTa is a living, learning, autonomous music artist built with AI,” Timbaland says in a statement in a Hot New Hiphop report. “She’s the first artist of a new generation.”
Fans are criticizing the producer’s decision to pour his efforts into an AI singer instead of working with young artists as he did in the past. However, Timbaland is hearing none of it, clapping back on social media.
Timbaland’s bizarre response
“Autotune is AI baby, yall just didn’t complain until it started writing better hooks than you… Timbo ain’t the villain, he’s just not babysitting y’all no more… you worried about AI stealing your sound, bro, you ain’t got one…,” a bizarre AI video of animals says on Timbaland’s Instagram.
The animal-like avatars criticize human fans pursuing music.
How do fans react to Timbaland’s new moves?
In response to Timbaland’s push back against critiques of his new AI venture, some fans fear he is ruining his “legacy.”
“Unc went out sad,” one commenter writes, suggesting the AI venture could be a career-ending move for Timbaland.
“After you reviewed so many fire artists on your live, this your response….,” another says.
“You’re a legend man but this isn’t it, listen to the people. art is human expression, doesn’t matter if the ‘songs’ are good, it’s not art, it’s vapid. there are surely better uses for AI,” a third shares.
“This was an extremely bad move – telling your fans they have no talent that would be worthy of AI stealing and to stop crying about it. Mad,” a fourth adds.
Another TikToker, Rahn Harper, points out that the announcement comes just weeks after Timbaland hosted an independent artist competition for a feature on his new album. Some fans believe Timbaland “talent farmed” the up-and-coming artists to train his AI singers.
“Oh he 100000% scraped the independant artists’ work for that AI. he absolutely ran that campaign to get fresh new original sounds to steal from cause it’d be too obvious by just using more well known music. that timing is too obvious,” one claimed.
“He talent farmed all those people,” another wrote in a comment liked by the TikToker.
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