[Publisher’s Note: This opinion piece is by SoulTracks senior staff writer Howard Dukes, in response to the much talked about recent story “The Fresh Singer we fell for was really A.I.,” which recounted a deceptive artist submission to us that we discovered was actually an A.I. generated artist and music.]
(November 4, 2025) You bought yourself. My wife says that each time somebody mistakes her kindness for weakness by neglecting to honor something invaluable like trust in exchange for something material and temporal like borrowed money. She’s saying you might keep the money – which the borrower spent seconds after receiving it. However, the trust relationship has been damaged – irreparably so – for fifty bucks, or however much she gave you or whatever she did for you.
I thought about that phrase after reading SoulTracks founder Chris Rizik’s account of posting and then removing from the site the article about Shayla Dunn. By now, all SoulTrackers know this “artist’s” story: Shayla Dunn’s submission, which we received in the form of an EPK that included a press release, photos and a music file, came from Chris Clay, a radio personality and producer with whom Chris Rizik and SoulTracks have had a professional relationship. Chris Rizik listened to the music, and he liked what he heard. Chris’s ear and the fact that Shayla Dunn’s music came from a trusted source was enough to overcome his suspicions about the “artist’s” lack of social media presence.
Further investigation led to the inescapable fact that things were not as they seemed. Chris Rizik suspected, and Clay confirmed, that Shayla Dunn was an AI creation. Chris quickly removed the article. Beyond the deception that Clay perpetrated against this website, the AI/deepfake raises ethical questions. One involves the way he created Shayla Dunn. Clay claims (unconfirmed) to have based the AI artist’s vocal stylings on a Hartford based singer with the same name whose vocals he recorded. Clay then claims to have “trained” the AI creation to sing in a similar manner. If this happened unbeknown to a flesh and blood Shayla Dunn – and I don’t know if that’s the case – that is a big problem.
Response to Shayla Dunn among SoulTrackers has been decidedly negative, although individual reactions were varied. The singer Sy Smith cited the AI indie soul singer as another of the commodification and caricature of Black artists in general and Black women artists in particular. Smith’s reaction echoed the concerns of other artists. Some critics were unimpressed with Shayla Dunn’s vocals, calling them shallow, while others felt SoulTracks’ due diligence left something to be desired.
Our after-action review will help us determine how we can minimize or (hopefully) eliminate the odds of being tricked like this is the future. However, being hoodwinked by AI/deepfakes is the nightmare that increasingly comes to life for legacy and new media outlets. Fox News got snookered by an infamous AI/deepfake over the weekend, one of many AI scams that bamboozled institutions that supposedly have the resources to know and do better.
SoulTracks shares some qualities with journalism. Our writers provide analysis of music trends, we interview artists and we critique and introduce music to our audience. SoulTracks also advocates and promotes soul and R&B music and the independent artist. Unlike journalists, a field that I worked in for 35 years, we are not unbiased, disinterested observers. We have a dog in this hunt. We want the artists we write about to succeed because we’re fans of the music and many of the musicians. That’s why I say that SoulTracks is also in the relationship business. Our relationship with the artists, producers, label heads and publicists with whom we work is collaborative and symbiotic.
Those individuals provide us with the biographies, photographs, articles and music that made SoulTracks the world’s largest site for R&B and soul music. We give those artists access and exposure to that large audience. Like all relationships, the one SoulTracks cultivates with the artists, label heads, producers and promoters in our universe is built on trust.
Our partners in the industry trust us to display their content in a way that’s accessible and user friendly, and for our writing to be accurate, insightful, informative and entertaining. Chris and I and all others who write for this site or who stand as the conduit between the industry and the fans trust that the music we receive represents their best work and that the artists are who they say they are.
The Shayla Dunn incident breaches that trust, and there will be consequences. It’s not clear what those consequences will be, but they will fall most heavily on the new artist looking to SoulTracks to provide that access and exposure that they hope will boost their come-up.
The EPK for some artists consists of selfie, an audio file and two paragraph press release typed on a Word Document. In the past, that was enough if the music was good. In the future, it won’t be regardless of the music’s quality, as we have now been burned. Chris Clay bought himself, but everyone’s going to pay.
By Howard Dukes
