Let human beings make art!

Relax, I’m not anti-AI. I just think some of you are using it terribly.

I need some of the OGs in the Nigerian music industry to step away from AI for a second.

Not because I hate AI. Far from it. I use AI tools almost every day. At this point, ChatGPT and Claude are my virtual assistants. AI has genuinely made life easier for creatives in so many ways, and pretending otherwise is dishonest. It has improved workflows, sped up execution, helped some of us organize ideas better, and opened doors for creatives who previously lacked access to certain resources.

But PLEASE!!!

What exactly is going on with some of these AI-generated cover arts and rollout materials lately? Why does your artwork look like something out of a GTA loading screen?

And before anybody starts shouting “adapt or shut up,” relax. I’m not anti-AI. I just think some of you are using it terribly. This is not me saying nobody should experiment with AI. Experimentation is good. Art should evolve with technology. But there’s a difference between using AI as a tool and letting it completely flatten your creative identity.

Unfortunately, some people in this industry are starting to blur that line badly. You’re hiding behind AI because you no longer want to put effort into developing actual creative direction. That’s the real issue for me.

Now, do not get me wrong. I actually think AI is funniest and best when it’s being used for unserious things. Those ridiculous TikTok AI songs? Peak! “Do You Know Amadou?” & “Melissa, I’m Drunk and Outside” genuinely altered my brain chemistry few weeks ago (yes i like foolish things.)

That’s where AI shines to me. Chaos, humor, fooling, and enhancement; YES. Not replacing human texture entirely.

One thing about art is that human touch is always visible, even through a screen. You can tell when something has intention behind it. You can feel when someone obsessed over details, references, storytelling, color grading, typography, world building, emotion, all the tiny things that make creative work feel alive.

And I’m sorry, but typing “make futuristic afrobeat cover art with fire and smoke” into an AI generator and calling it a day is not world building. It’s laziness.

Some of these rollout assets feel less like experimentation and more like creative exhaustion. Like people have discovered a shortcut and decided taste is now optional. And that scares me slightly. Because just because AI can do something does not mean it should. Especially in music.

Music is emotional. It is spiritual. Cultural. Human. Messy. Layered. Textured. And it’s not supposed to feel overly optimized all the time. The imperfections are part of the experience.

And maybe that’s why some AI-heavy creative direction feels so hollow to me. Everything looks technically “good,” but emotionally empty.

Your artwork looks like it was ripped off an old Super Strikas comic book.

The irony is that the people using AI best creatively are usually the ones who already had strong ideas before touching it. They use it as support and not replacement.

No tool can replace taste, and no prompt can replace human perspective. AI should help creatives execute faster and think wider but if the entire foundation of your art starts depending on it, then at what point do we stop and ask where the human factor went?

Please. Let’s regain composure & behave ourselves. Use AI for fun and joke. Use it for enhancement. Use it to make TikTok brainrot songs that ruin everybody’s IQ for a few weeks.

But abeg, let human beings make art!