{"id":161939,"date":"2025-09-16T23:41:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T23:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/161939\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T23:41:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T23:41:10","slug":"ai-music-artist-xania-monet-signs-multimillion-dollar-record-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/161939\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Music Artist Xania Monet Signs Multimillion-Dollar Record Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tLast week, a team of record-label executives took a Zoom meeting with a little-known R&B artist releasing music under the name Xania Monet, whose album has been climbing fast up the charts, drawing interest and potential bidders from around the music business.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut it quickly became clear that this was no ordinary rising star when she joined the call without video, explaining she wasn\u2019t \u201ccamera ready\u201d and declining to sing.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"imoliver\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s because the artist, a poet whose real name is Telisha Jones and who goes by Nikki, has used AI to craft her image and Suno to craft her music. Given her use of Suno, which was sued for copyright infringement<\/a> by the major record companies last year, labels backed by the majors abstained from making offers, though one major label put a top offer on the table anyway. The bidding reached $3\u00a0million to sign her, sources say, and Hallwood Media, the entertainment company led by former Interscope executive Neil Jacobson, ultimately added her to its roster with a multimillion-dollar agreement.<\/p>\n

\n\tXania is the brainchild of 31-year-old Jones, who owns a design studio and lives in OIive Branch, Miss. She comes from humble beginnings, says her manager Romel Murphy, a veteran music marketing executive who has worked with gospel acts like Cheneta Jones and K. Michelle<\/a> as well\u00a0as Memphis newcomer IME Casino and considers Jones family. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cShe\u2019s been writing poetry for a long time,\u201d Murphy tells\u00a0Billboard, noting that 90% of her lyrics are her own true stories, and the other 10% are inspired by the stories of her friends and community. What\u2019s making the songs catch is \u201cnot a hook and a bridge and a catchy chant \u2014 It\u2019s just the lyrics, and they are pure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Jones grew up singing herself in church, she\u2019s not the \u201cvocal beast\u201d that Xania is, Murphy says. Jones used a combination of Suno\u2019s platform and live elements to create her album, and claims full ownership of the songwriting and production credits, he says, but she plans to work with additional human producers on her upcoming project. Murphy says he\u2019s now fielding publishing deal offers, and is in the midst of planning Xania\u2019s first live performance.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"(L-R)<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis is real music \u2014 it\u2019s real R&B,\u201d says Murphy. \u201cThere\u2019s an artist behind it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNotably, Monet appeared on the Billboard charts for this first time this week (dated Sept. 20, 2025), debuting at No. 25 on the Emerging Artists tally and at No. 21 on Hot Gospel Songs with \u201cLet Go, Let God.\u201d Additionally, her song \u201cHow Was I Supposed to Know\u201d hit No. 1 on R&B Digital Song Sales, No. 3 on R&B\/Hip-Hop Digital Song Sales and No. 22 on Digital Song Sales. Her catalog has earned 9.8 million on-demand official U.S. streams, 5.4 million of those in the most recent tracking week (Sept. 5-11), according to Luminate.<\/p>\n

\n\tJacobson is betting big on AI-powered music: In July, Hallwood\u00a0announced a recording agreement<\/a> with\u00a0imoliver, the top-streaming \u201cmusic designer\u201d on\u00a0Suno,\u00a0marking the\u00a0first signing of a Suno creator to a record label. \u201cStone,\u201d the breakout single, racked up more than 3 million streams on the Suno platform before it was released on all streaming services on Aug. 8. It has now earned 4,000 on-demand official U.S. streams, according to Luminate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week, a team of record-label executives took a Zoom meeting with a little-known R&B artist releasing music…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,498,74],"class_list":["post-161939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-music-news","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}