Trevor responds to the question whether it is still necessary for one to have an academic qualification in music especially in this age where anyone can use and experiment with AI technological tools to produce music, he explains “Academic qualifications in music have never been really about creating music, they do not create, the mind, soul and heart are the ones that create”. He also adds that the academic qualifications are there to make one understand music better so that when they are creating they understand what can be done or cannot be done.
In his response on whether an average beatmaker now feels like a talentless creative, Mawaka indicates that beat makers are indeed in a big trouble and the only way out is for them to work hard, continuously improve their works, create unique music identifiable with them with a huge impact and a large following. He says beat making can now be made in seconds He gives an example of Jazz music which he says is quite extraordinary as it is hard to be copied/replaced as compared to other music genres such as hip hop.
Mawaka believes that art is now being taken over by machines and this is why eventually artists will be redundant and jobs will be lost as every aspect of the music industry such as composing, beat making, editing, mastering ad even sleeve designs can be done by AI applications.
Trevor acknowledges the presence of AI technologies and their impact on the music industry, he says, “Almost every music sector has been affected by AI, especially now that machines can sing in someone’s voice, releases have been seen online” He gives an example of The Weeknd and says that it was not the Weeknd but AI generated music sounding like the Weeknd yet it was AI sound. In 2023, an AI voice-generated song featuring Drake and The Weeknd’s voices dropped and went viral on TikTok creating mixed feelings regarding the use of AI applications. The track is said to have been released by a certain ‘Ghostwriter977’, a Tik toker without an approval from the owners of the song, this is an example that Mawaka gives on how powerful and destructive AI tools are. He however indicates that if these AI tools are used to revive the music industry in a more innovative way they will surely support the music industry.
Mawaka says that AI cannot create music., all it does is to generate music and this is why artists must not worry much about these AI tools as they will not be able to replace the human creativity with feelings attached. “Art is an expression of feelings and a computer will never express feelings as would a human being because a machine is not a human”.
Trevor openly reveals that he does not support AI generated music, he believes in originality demonstrated by human creativity. He also states that he believes in human beings using AI in a way that still respects the ethics of creativity “One thing about machines is that they will never have that human touch, one of the things I like doing is writing a poem and then ask AI to write a poem of that nature the result is that AI is predictable in a way because it is just regurgitating materials that it collected over time, you will notice that it has certain quotes or phrases that it over uses and these will never replace human creativity.
