“Hire a real musician.”
Who the fuck do you think has been sitting at this keyboard all these years?
I was seven, playing endless renditions of “Hot Cross Buns,” long before anyone could type a request into a music generator. The people arriving now to judge my legitimacy didn’t hear those first attempts. They weren’t there for the forty-something years between that keyboard and these recordings.
You see an AI vocal source and invent a history in which I never learned music.
You see AI art on the cover and assume I have no experience in graphic design. I made my living doing it for over three decades.
You see AI-assisted video and assume the visual imagination arrived with the generator. I’ve provided examples of myself creating avatars and making them dance going back to 2007. I designed skybox textures in Linden Lab’s Second Life years before today’s generative image and video tools. The scenery, colors, and environments have a history. The software changed. My imagination didn’t suddenly appear with it.
You see assistance with grammar and punctuation and decide you understand everything behind my books.
My writing history includes advertising copy. I was creative director for an internationally regarded newsletter. At an internet marketing firm, I wore almost every hat while the stage and recognition went to the face of the company. I and five other people did the work that built it for him.
I know how much creative labor can disappear behind one public name.
Now I’m putting my own name behind my work, and you want to make me invisible again because I disclose my tools.
Call It Sin did not begin with “generate me a cool pop song.” I wrote the lyrics and composition. I produced and sound-engineered the recording. The original Suno vocal source was extensively edited. Across my work are hundreds of arrangements, melodies, MIDI rolls, instrument choices, sound-design decisions, and revisions.
The credits identify the synthetic source. They also identify my work. Read both.
A recording is constructed. Beyoncé’s engineer DJ Swivel described compiling her vocals from takes while praising her singing and vocal arrangements. Exceptional ability and painstaking studio production coexist. Engineer’s account
“Love Story (Taylor’s Version)” credits Mike Meadows on acoustic guitar, banjo, and mandolin. His contribution doesn’t erase Taylor Swift’s artistry. The name on the cover isn’t a claim that one person performed every sound. Recording credits
If your objection is specifically to AI, explain it. “Hire somebody” doesn’t establish that there’s no creator already doing the work.
What career would satisfy you? I’ve waited for a producer’s blessing. I’ve played the mall piano for tips. I’ve assembled musicians and chased dive-bar bookings. I’ve walked those paths. I don’t owe you another lap to prove they count.
I was a Christian. I studied various forms of witchcraft. I understand creation through intent, energy, repetition, and words becoming something another person can experience.
I call it conjuring.
Call AI the spirit in the box, the golem, or the devil. I don’t give a fuck. Whatever comes out still has to survive my judgment.
That judgment has a history. So do the colors, the rooms, the characters, and the music. They carry fragments of the person who lived all those years.
Criticize the recording. Challenge a method. Tell me where the words fail.
But don’t look at the software credits and pretend you’ve read my life.
The industry loves a story about selling your soul. Mine’s already in the songs.
Put me on one more list.
Call it sin. I call it mine.