No Fakes: Music Advocacy Day and the Infiltration of AI in Music
đ Welcome to October. As I sit here reflecting on this yearâs Music Advocacy Day, one thought keeps racing through my mind: *No fakes.* Thatâs what I want for our artâauthenticity, rawness, and truth. Yet, I canât help but feel the pressure mounting as AI slowly creeps into the integrity of music, threatening to distort not only what we hear but how we create. For those of us in the Spoken Word Poetry community, this is deeply unsettling.
I understand the culture of ghostwriting in music. It's a long-standing practice in songwriting, especially in pop and hip-hop. Some of our favorite anthems were penned by someone behind the scenes. Hip-hop, with its collaborative roots, sometimes embraces ghostwriters too. But Spoken Word Poetry? That has never been a thing. In poetry, every line we write, every breath between stanzas, is a piece of *us.* A reflection of our soul and experiences. It is our truth, and there is no room for fakes.
And this couldnât be more relevant now that itâs FYC Grammy Voting Season for Round-1 (Oct 4-15). Whoâs to say who is who, or what? Where is the line between authenticity and imitation when AI infiltrates everything from production to performance?
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What concerns me is that we havenât even fully established our presence in spaces like the Grammys or broader media, and now weâre facing the looming threat of artificial intelligence. AI could completely alter the landscape before we've had the chance to solidify our place. Spoken word isnât just about clever wordplayâit's about the poetâs voice, their lived experience, and their unique perspective. How can a machine capture the essence of our lived truth?
And we must also remember, there is an imperative in poetry to quote another poet. We honor each other by giving credit where itâs due. I remember performing a group piece I had co-written with one of my poetry slam team members. Later, I performed the same piece at a feature without mentioning her name. I was hammered by two women in the audience for not giving her proper credit. They asked me directly about the original writer, and I felt their disapproval sting. Lesson learned - Eeeee.
But thatâs the issue, right? AI doesnât *learn* from experience the way we do. And it doesnât value giving credit or understanding the impact of misattribution. It takes our voices and synthesizes them into something that sounds similar, but the spirit is gone. The acknowledgment, the shared humanity, is lost.
AI is already changing how students approach academia. Universities are lifting heavy AI restrictions because they realize itâs here to stay. Students are writing papers with AI tools, and we canât stop it. But the real question is: how do we manage this influx of AI without it turning our world fake?
Please support this bill to safeguard artists! Support the NO FAKES Act https://www.congressweb.com/GRAMMY/91/
Spoken word artists, poets, musiciansâwe are the protectors of authenticity. Our words have moved generations, sparked revolutions, and changed lives. Thereâs something sacred in that. So, we have to ask ourselves: how do we guard this sacredness in a world of technology that may not respect it?
The answer may not be clear yet, but one thing is certain: we canât afford to fake it. Our art deserves better. Our voices deserve to be heard in their truest form, not diluted or imitated by machines.
For us, for the future of our craftâletâs keep it real. No fakes.
Write on!
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