“Trying to eliminate the beauty of humanity”: Russ expresses his views on Timbaland's AI label and signing of AI musicians

On June 12, 2025, in an episode of Apple's Rap Life Review, Popular American rapper Russ shared his views on Timbaland's AI label and the signing of AI musicians. On June 5, 2025, Timbaland, alongside Zayd Portillo and Rocky Mudaliar, launched an AI record label, Stage Zero, and debuted its first AI signee, Tata.

Russ expressed his disapproval over the music producer's new establishment, suggesting that Timbaland was seeking for control and replacing artists for machines.

"I just feel like from the conversations I've seen him have, it's coming off like the motivation behind signing AI artists and doing all these is control," Russ said.

He added:

"And you're not looking for artists; you're looking for machines that follow orders."

The Losin Control rapper stated that such use of Artificial Intelligence takes away from the beauty of human design:

"You're trying to eliminate the messiness, aka the beauty of humanity, and looking at artists like these inconvenient employees.”

“It’s not creativity, it’s control,” Russ says as he condemns Timbaland's AI label, Stage Zero

In his June 12, 2025, interview, Russell James Vitale, aka Russ, discussed the implications of Timbaland’s AI label on the ideology of art and creativity.

"It's not creativity; it's control. And so at that point, you are not building art, you're building product," James stated.

The Best On Earth hitmaker buttressed his point by saying:

"Yeah, and you're also telling the whole world that the ideal artist is the one who shuts up and obeys. It's like, that's compliance, that's not collaboration."

Russ explained that Timbaland’s AI label might send the wrong message to the world about American culture whilst eliminating any form of humanity from music creation:

"That's not art. You're building product, and it's really kind of telling about our culture, not rap or anything, Just America, telling the world that we just value convenience, speed, profit, output. So it's like obedience... You're eliminating the humanity from it, and it's just, I think it just sends the completely wrong message," he explained.

Rapper Russ accused the record producer and rapper of joining the bandwagon instead of advocating against the use of Artificial Intelligence in art:

“From what I've seen him say, it seems like he's, he might be more concerned with missing the wave and owning the wave as opposed to questioning should we even be riding the wave."

Russ' Into The W!LD Tour is scheduled to kick off on July 8, 2025, at Colorado's Red Rock Amphitheatre and conclude on August 10, 2025, at Washington's White River Amphitheatre.

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