“Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many.”
— Phaedrus
(November 3, 2025) That quote is from the 4th Century B.C., but seems applicable today in a world where the line between reality and fiction is more difficult to discern than ever. And I had my own recent firsthand experience in the form of new R&B singer Shayla Dunn.
Hers was one of over 100 artist submissions we received last week at SoulTracks. But Dunn’s look, story, and music stood apart. Her PR sheet screamed “Born and raised just outside Hartford, Connecticut, Shayla Dunn has been captivating audiences with her rich, soulful tone and authentic artistry. With I’m Different, she positions herself as one of the most exciting new voices in modern R&B.”
One listen to her debut album showed the billing to be largely true. With a sound that harkened to the years of peak female adult soul, from Anita Baker to Phyllis Hyman to Regina Belle, I’m Different was clearly one of the better introductions we’d heard awhile. We only write about a small fraction of the artists who submit to us, but I immediately moved her to the top of the stack and wrote a glowing review of this fresh new singer.
I also began to look for background info on Dunn to understand how she simply popped into our consciousness out of nowhere. That rarely happens with a talented young singer who has been gaining fans by performing at local clubs and concerts. But the more I dug in, the odder things became.
First, the few photos of Dunn on the web were attractive, but bordering on the “uncanny valley” of nonreality. Then there was the fact she had almost no social media presence – an oddity for any artist in 2025. But the kicker was the “live” YouTube video of her October 18 performance at The Webster, a Hartford concert venue. It was clearly a studio (not live) recording, with canned applause in the background and no actual video of the artist performing. Further, a quick check of The Webster’s history showed that Dunn was not on the bill for October 18.
Now there was a pit in my stomach; we had been duped. I immediately deleted my review of “I’m Different,” and emailed noted producer and radio personality Chris Clay, the man behind Shayla’s promotion, with a simple question: Is she real? 24 hours later, I had my answer. Clay admitted that Shayla was an A.I. Model like the noted $3 million record company signee Xania Monet, and that he spent a lot of time and money to develop her and her music. I was angry at the deception from someone I knew (and the attempt to have us spread the deception), but I was also curious, and asked Clay if he was open to telling the story behind the creation of this fictitious artist and album. He was.
“I’ve always prided myself on being on the cutting edge and I’ve been watching how A.I. has started to penetrate the music game,” explains Clay. “So I decided I would create an artist that would compete in Indie world of music.” His search led him, he says, to a real singer in Hartford Connecticut named Shayla Dunn, whose singing voice he would capture over hours of recording to become the basis for the A.I. “training” of his virtual artist. He then used A.I. to create the physical embodiment of the artist, and began writing songs for her with Leni Holmes and Tslane Henry.
When asked about the undisclosed virtual nature of the artist, Clay responded, “We were just trying to see how people would respond to what we created.” His follow-up explanation that “I never planned to fool anyone” really isn’t consistent with the materials we received or the online posts of Shayla Dunn – which clearly were designed to convince us that she was real – but his ultimate justification is probably his most important point: “People just want good music. Of course there will always be the superstars of the world, but this new generation of music streamers and buyers are first locking into the music. So my first question is, is it good or bad?” Well, if I look at my now-deleted review of “I’m Different,” I have to admit that in this situation the music was pretty good.
Clay plans to continue to develop the A.I. Shayla. “Not only will Shayla deliver quality music, but in the 2.0 version she will do drops, interviews, and music videos. All this and more is being worked out as we speak.” And he isn’t alone in his plans to use A.I. as a tool in a difficult era for independent artists, where low streaming revenue often doesn’t sufficiently offset high production costs: “Many artist are taking the A.I. generated music complete with backgrounds and adding their lead vocals on it. It’s a very cost effective way to make records today. I really think that in the next 5-10 years this is where music will be.”
Whether I like it or not, I think he is right. It would be an understatement to say I am ambivalent about the developments of A.I. in music. Creations like Shayla Dunn show that A.I.-driven music can be quite listenable. But I can’t get out of my head the notion that part of the allure of music is knowing that it was created by a combination of human experience and God-given talents of expression – that what in part makes it compelling is feeling another person’s very personal expression of their soul.
Now, I get it that that is an idealized view not borne out by much of the music-as-a-commodity that has filled the radio for years. But A.I. takes the last bit of veneer off that ideal, delivering ersatz, probabilistic approximations of emotion without apology. Perhaps I’m just a “get off my lawn” old dude who isn’t ready to fully remove that romantic mask, but I was gratified to see my kids were equally uncomfortable with the notion of nonhuman music development. I’m guessing my baby granddaughter may grow up in a different world, where the lines are way more blurred, and music will be music, regardless of its source.
My Dad’s favorite proverb was “The dog barked and barked, but the caravan moved on,” and right now I feel like a howling canine even as the music world moves toward an uncharted place of artificial creation in entertainment, alongside Sora movies and hologram concerts. But sadly, for millions of people – from baby boomers to zoomers – who have inextricably and collectively associated the songs and musical expressions of artists to the most important events of their lives, something will be lost. That unique, 50,000 year old human connection that music has brought will have a tough time surviving as the art form travels further down the road of entertainment-by-automation.
By Chris Rizik
[Postscript: Thank you to our many astute readers who sent us information on other artists being promoted by this same promoter who appear to be A.I.-generated. Further, we have been unable to verify the existence of the “real” singer Shayla Dunn, as claimed by Mr. Clay.]
[Publisher’s note: SoulTracks will soon be adopting a formal policy on submissions of A.I.-generated music, which will, at a minimum, require full disclosure of A.I. use in music. More to come…]
Read Also: Howard Dukes: Our collective trust was breached by “A.I.” artist promoter
