Despite major record labels suing it for its AI technology, Timbaland is standing beside Suno, the music creation program.

As AFROTECH™ previously told you, Timbaland aligned himself with the artificial intelligence (AI) music creation tool Suno in October 2024, taking on the title of its strategic advisor. He had already been an avid user of the platform for several months.

“You can put out great songs in minutes,” he said during an interview with Rolling Stone. “I always wanted to do what Quincy Jones did with Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ when he was [almost] 50. So my ‘Thriller,’ to me, is this tool. God presented this tool to me. I probably made a thousand beats in three months, and a lot of them—not all—are bangers and from every genre you can possibly think of. I just did four K-pop songs this morning!”

Timbaland’s embrace of AI is not new. While speaking at the AFROTECH™ Conference in November 2023, during a panel titled “From Producer to Founder: A Conversation with Timbaland,” moderated by Silicon Valley Bank executive Tosh Ernest, he mentioned the importance of being at the forefront of its innovation.

“So it’s like, let’s embrace it [artificial intelligence] now and figure out the way to make it cool,” Timbaland explained at the time. “And if we take it, it will be at the forefront because, guess what, we, as the culture, are the coolest people. If we figure something out, I think it can be very lucrative.”

Not everyone in the music industry shares Timbaland’s support of AI in music creation. In fact, an open letter signed by the Artist Rights Alliance in April 2024 struck down companies using AI without the permission of artists. This open letter included support from over 200 artists, including Metro Boomin, Billie Eilish, Nicki Minaj, and Stevie Wonder, per Rolling Stone.

“Some of the biggest and most powerful companies are using AI to replace human artists, violating our rights and eroding the value of our work,” the letter read. The letter also required tech companies to “cease the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists.”

Suno itself has faced scrutiny. According to information from Variety and the Insurance Journal, copyright-infringement lawsuits were filed in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts by the Recording Industry Association, which represents Universal Music Group NV, Warner Music Group Corp., and Sony Music Entertainment, against Suno because of “mass infringement of copyrighted sound recordings copied and exploited without permission by two multi-million-dollar music generation services.”

“The music community has embraced AI, and we are already partnering and collaborating with responsible developers to build sustainable AI tools centered on human creativity that put artists and songwriters in charge,” said RIAA Chairman and CEO Mitch Glazier, according to Variety. “But we can only succeed if developers are willing to work together with us. Unlicensed services like Suno and Udio that claim it’s ‘fair’ to copy an artist’s life’s work and exploit it for their own profit without consent or pay set back the promise of genuinely innovative AI for us all.”

Despite opposition, Timbaland still sees the merit in platforms such as Suno.

“You’re talking about copyrights and this or that,” Timbaland said, according to Rolling Stone. “No, man, it’s theory. It’s learning what is played on Earth.… If it had no knowledge, how can it give you back the answer? So you got to give it knowledge. And that’s all it is. Knowledge of musicality.”