‘It will never cover what’s authentic’: African music industry weighs up AI risks and rewards

Sambaiana, a seven-woman ensemble from Brazil, gave their first performance outside their home country at the Atlantic Music Expo in Cape Verde. Photograph: Ricci Shryock/The Guardian

Last July, the Nigerian singer-songwriter Fave found herself caught up in a viral moment: an unauthorised version of a track by her featuring an AI choir had been released, quickly becoming an internet sensation. To get ahead of the situation, she recorded her own remix that integrated the AI-assisted song and added it to her discography.

“In my view, [that] was smart and very business aware,” Oyinkansola Fawehinmi, a Lagos-based entertainment lawyer, observed a few months later. “She essentially reclaimed the ‘AI version’ and released it as her own official expression.”