SZA Slams AI Music, Alleges Diplo Backs Suno Training
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- SZA posted Saturday on Instagram alleging that Diplo had equity in Suno and was trying to train the platform on "the best and brightest black minds of writers and producers," adding that Black Americans make up 13% of the US population while shaping global sound.
- SZA said a search for her name revealed AI models had been trained on 238 of her songs, and called any musician who supports the technology "disgusting" with "NOTHING YOU COULD EVER SAY TO ME TO MAKE THIS OKAY."
- Diplo has publicly embraced Suno and AI, telling an interviewer in April "there's no fighting AI" and that he no longer needs human voices because "I can get the best voice from AI," later posting on X that artists must "adapt or just like give up and become an uber driver."
- Diplo invested in AI research startup Aaru earlier this year, though his alleged Suno stake remains unconfirmed; Suno CEO Mikey Shulman said "some of the best artists, producers, songwriters" joined the company's $400 million funding round, without naming them.
- Suno chief product officer Jack Brody wrote on LinkedIn last week that the platform's training metadata does not include artist names and that it cannot replicate material it was trained on, with Suno now testing a Warner Music Group-backed model.
- Sony Music, SZA's label parent through RCA Records, is in active litigation against Suno and competitor Udio, while Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group have settled their suits—a deal that triggered a countersuit from the American Federation of Musicians.
- The dispute reflects an industry split: Jack Antonoff last month called AI-music makers "godless whores" and "bad actors," while producers Will.i.am and Timbaland have invested in AI companies.
Why it matters: SZA's 238-song training claim and 13% statistic put a concrete number on what Black artists say is happening to their catalogs, making this a copyright fight with a racial-exploitation subtext. The split runs through SZA's own label Sony (suing Suno) and into producers like Diplo, who holds AI investments, meaning the artists generating the dispute and the industry suing the platforms are not on the same side of the table.
