LOS ANGELES (AP) — When created by artificial intelligence country song called “Walk My Walk” hit No. 1 on Billboard's digital country song sales chart this month, it was attributed to a fictional artist named Breaking Rust, a white, digitally created avatar who didn't exist two months ago.
But the song's vocal phrasing, melodic form and stylistic DNA belong to someone who really exists: a Grammy-nominated country artist. Blanco Brownblack musical artist who worked with Britney Spears, Childish Gambino And Rihanna.
And he had no idea.
“I didn’t even know about the song until people approached me about it,” said Brown, whose 2019 country rap hit “Lift” helped usher in a new, hybrid era of country crossovers. He didn't find out about the AI's leading track until his phone was flooded with messages from friends.
“My phone kept blowing up,” he said. “Someone said, 'Dude, someone put your name into the AI and made a white version of you. They just used Blanco instead of Brown.”
The moment is the latest example of how generative artificial intelligence is upending the music industry, giving anyone the ability to instantly create seemingly new songs by typing suggestions into a chat window, often using models trained on the voices and styles of real artists without their knowledge.
Who's behind the AI-generated country song?
The energetic and ponderous “Walk My Walk” credits Obier Rivaldo Taylor as one of the song's creators, and streaming platforms like Apple Music and Spotify identify him as the songwriter and producer. In recent months, Taylor has also been featured on streaming platforms as the songwriter and producer of Defbeatsai, one of several X-rated country artists created by artificial intelligence that took social media by storm last year.
However, the Defbeatsai ecosystem is linked to another figure in Brown's past: Abraham Abushmeis, a Brown collaborator who was once jokingly nicknamed “Abe Einstein” for his keen studio instincts. Abushmais co-wrote several songs on Brown's 2019 album Honeysuckle & Lightning Bugs and is listed as the developer of Echo, a little-known AI-powered music-making app advertised on one Defbeats.ai Instagram Pages with a link encouraging users “Make your own hit country song.”
Brown said he was not notified of their involvement in the AI attack, and the employee he once trained has since become unavailable.
“Abe’s number has changed,” Brown said. “We talked. I haven't heard from him in a year or two.”
The AP reached out to Abushmais for comment but did not receive a response.
The digital avatar leading “Walk My Walk,” an AI-generated white country singer created with a vocal approach modeled on Brown's sound, is where the moment went from creepy to uncomfortable.
“It’s a white human AI with a black voice,” Brown said. “And he sings like a Negro spiritual.”
For Brown, shock quickly turned to action. He walked into the studio and recorded my cover of the songwhich was released last week. On Monday, he will also release a remastered version of the track with new lyrics and a new arrangement.
Brown's management said his response to the song is a direct challenge to the legal, ethical and political void surrounding AI-generated music. He wants to use his own life experiences to force the industry and lawmakers to confront who owns art and what happens when technology trumps the rights of the human creators it imitates.
“If anyone is going to sing like me, it should be me,” he said.
A new kind of hit is rewriting the rules faster than the industry can respond.
For musicians and educators, the success of “Walk My Walk” made one thing clear: AI-generated music has evolved from an internet experiment to a commercial breakthrough.
“We are entering a very strange and unprecedented period in both creativity and industry,” said Josh Antonuccio, director of Ohio University's Music Industry Summit. “AI has essentially democratized the process of making music.”
This democratization took place without any obstacles. Major record labels have sued Suno and Udio, two of the most popular artificial intelligence song generators, accusing them of training their models on copyrighted recordings without permission.
“These companies were feeding their platforms large amounts of recorded music without permission,” Antonuccio said. “It leaves creators in this weird purgatory where they don't get compensated.”
Some labels have now moved from lawsuits to negotiations. Universal Music Group recently settled copyright infringement claims with Udio and signed a new licensing agreement with the platform. Warner Music Group struck a deal of its own Tuesday, partnering with Suno in what the companies called a “first-of-its-kind” agreement to develop artificial intelligence-powered licensed music that both compensates and protects artists.
“At the moment there is no accountability mechanism,” he said.
The sudden success of “Walk My Walk” also raises questions about the tools that power it. Educators say most chart-ready AI vocals today are generated by systems like Suno and Udio, which allow users to create full songs by suggesting musical genres, vocal styles and lyrical ideas.
White AI Avatar Singing in Black Artist's Voice Raises Deeper Questions
For Brown, the situation is a legal and cultural problem.
He spent years exploring country music as a black artist, combining gospel, hip-hop, pop and patois. He was nominated for a Grammy and accepted by the Recording Academy, but country radio failed to give him consistent support.
Meanwhile, AI's song, built around his vocals and paired with a white avatar, went straight to No. 1, a dynamic he says reflects a familiar pattern in Nashville: re-attributing the innovations of black artists.
“He created something with my tone and gave it a white face,” Brown said. “(Race) in Nashville is an understatement.”
Music teachers say the problem has been solved. beyond authorship. While artificial intelligence tools can convincingly approximate sound, they cannot capture its source.
“There are things that a real artist conveys that a digital piece can never convey,” said Shelton “Shelley” Berg, dean of the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami and a Grammy-nominated pianist. He spoke shortly after appearing at the Future of Music panel at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles last week. “They occupy fundamentally different spaces.”
Berg said AI tracks can sometimes be polished in an eerie way, but the intangible elements of performance remain elusive.
“There’s an energy between artist and audience that happens in real time that you can’t see, but you can feel,” he said. “We are light years away from what will happen in the artificial intelligence space.”
AI reveals information, but does not threaten
Brown insists he is not against AI. He's not even mad at Abushmais. He's proud that his sound has inspired someone, but he knows he's exposing the moment.
In his opinion, the emergence of an AI artist built on his tone only underscored what he learned repeatedly in Nashville: talent is one thing, but how the industry judges value is often another.
“I go through this every day with real people who steal and borrow what I do,” Brown said. “So I don't care if it's a robot or a human. They still don't give me credit.”
In a rapidly changing environment, artists will have another advantage that machines won't be able to imitate, Brown said.
“Real artists will always win,” he said. “The purpose of life is where greed cannot.”
