Meet Xania Monet, the AI “singer” stirring up major drama in the music world — and now making Billboard history.
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The computer-generated crooner just became the first artificial artist to ever land on a U.S. Billboard radio chart, debuting at No. 30 on the Adult R&B Airplay list with her track “How Was I Supposed to Know?” — a song that has already topped Billboard’s R&B Digital Song Sales chart and racked up more than 44 million streams in the U.S. alone.
Monet isn’t a real woman, but she does have a real creator: Mississippi poet and designer Telisha “Nikki” Jones, who reportedly uses generative A.I. software to turn her written poems into vocal performances. The industry took notice fast — and back in September, Jones secured a multi-million-dollar record deal with Hallwood Media after a full-on label bidding war.
Not everyone is celebrating the robot takeover.
Kehlani publicly dragged the rise of AI acts, telling fans the trend is “so beyond out of our control,” and calling out the tech for allowing people to create music without properly crediting — or paying — the human artists whose work the systems are trained on. “Nothing and no one on Earth will ever be able to justify AI to me,” she said. SZA and Mac DeMarco have echoed similar frustrations, while ABBA legend Björn Ulvaeus has taken the opposite stance, calling AI “a great tool.”
The debate comes as the industry faces a chilling forecast: a recent study warns that artists and songwriters could lose a quarter of their income to AI within just four years.
But Xania Monet ’s camp says the numbers don’t lie. Her manager, Romel Murphy, insists the song is winning because people actually like it — not because it was made by a robot. “Her song is resonating with the masses. That was our simple formula,” he said, urging critics to “just listen to the songs… then make your judgment.”
The viral track first caught fire on TikTok before hitting radio, and Monet has already charted across several Billboard lists, including Hot Gospel Songs with her track “Let Go, Let God.” Now, her team is gearing up for a full-scale radio push — with hopes of hitting No. 1.
