Toronto
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Felts, a Nigerian producer turned artist, studied music in church, believing that sound and spirit are inseparable. This is the central idea that shapes his discussion of the rise of artificial intelligence in music. In other words, true creativity requires a soul and cannot be replicated by technology.
Raised by a father who was a pastor in Nigeria, the musician grew up playing instruments and leading choirs in worship, learning early on that music contains energy, intention, and meaning beyond performance.
“Music is spiritual,” Felts told CNN’s Larry Madowo. “It’s energy. It’s combining energy.”
The music industry is facing one of its most profound changes as AI-generated songs become increasingly popular on streaming platforms and synthetic artists begin to appear on the charts. Opinions are polarized regarding this change.
Platforms like Spotify feature thousands of AI-generated tracks, often released with generic names and stock images, and optimized for playlists and algorithms. Some earn millions of streams before listeners even know there’s no human singer.
Spotify aims for AI transparency by putting voluntary AI disclosures in song credits and metadata, with a focus on reducing spam and banning fake audio clones, but it hasn’t added any big “AI” labels to music tracks. Apple Music is required to disclose AI involvement in stream metadata, but that information is not displayed within the app, and AI transparency is largely kept behind the scenes.
Recently, AI-generated performers have even made it onto Billboard’s charts, including genre-specific listings, demonstrating how quickly machine-generated music has gone from novelty to commercial force.
Against the backdrop of this changing climate, Felts approaches its reality with both curiosity and anxiety.
“AI is in uncharted territory,” he said. “There’s a good side to things and a crazy side to things. For now, we’re looking at the good side. But I’m scared of where it will lead us, especially creatively.”
For him, it’s not just about quantity and efficiency. It all depends on whether technology can truly capture the essence, emotion, and humanity that define music.
“I don’t think AI is perfect,” Feltz said.
“Human beings are perfect and mistakes are perfect. There is perfection in imperfection. That is art.”
That belief is rooted in his childhood musical experiences. As he watched the choir move the congregation, he realized that it was emotion, not technical precision, that resonated.
“I saw the impact it had on people,” he said. “That’s when I knew music was more important than performance.”
This is also why he draws a clear line between reproduction and creation. For Pheelz, AI can learn patterns, imitate styles, and create infinite variations, but it cannot bring the faith, vulnerability, and lived experience that he considers essential to true creativity.
“AI has no soul,” he said. “Art needs soul to survive.”
Those values are reflected in the way he works today. A handwritten sign hangs in his studio instructing his collaborators to leave their egos at the door. This is a reminder that, in his view, creativity is a shared, almost sacred exchange.
“Ego kills creativity,” he said. “When you’re making music, you have to be humble in front of the music.”
The idea of music as spirit is also central to how Pheelz understands Afrobeats. When the focus of Madowo’s interview turned to the genre, Felts explained why, in his view, Afrobeats is particularly resistant to being flattened by algorithms.
“Afrobeats is a spirit before it’s a sound,” he says. “Sound captures the spirit of people.”
From Fela Kuti’s Afrobeats roots to its current global dominance, Afrobeats encompasses cultural memory, community, and context—elements that cannot be fully extracted through data alone. As AI-generated music becomes more compelling and commercially prominent, Pheelz believes that their spiritual and cultural underpinnings may prove essential.
He says the industry is still learning how to respond amid this uncertainty.
“We’re in the infancy of AI right now,” he says. “Over time, there will be rules and checks.”
Still, his confidence in the future of music lies in the enduring power of authentic human expression, not regulation or technology. This is the key point of his argument against the capabilities of AI.
“I know that soul always wins,” Felts said. “Art always wins.”
