Suno Pulls Controversial Mary J. Blige Ad in Which She Calls AI Music Generator ‘Pretty Dope’

The company says it entered an agreement with someone who falsely presented as Blige's rep.

Generative AI music platform Suno has pulled a controversial ad starring Mary J. Blige after learning that the legendary singer hadn’t actually approved it.

In a statement shared with Billboard on Thursday (Sept. 3), a spokesperson for Suno said, “We entered into a business deal with someone who presented themselves as Ms.

The spokesperson also said that Blige is “an icon who we all deeply admire” who “hasn’t stopped innovating.” “That’s why we wanted to work with her,” they added.

The development comes after the nine-time Grammy winner appeared in a video posted by Suno that showed her listening as someone who appears to be a producer demonstrates the AI system’s capabilities.

Now, it’s like, ‘Ah, OK, this is pretty dope,’ if we could play with it more and learn more of everything else going on. It’s pretty dope.”.

Her apparent participation in the ad led to immediate backlash from fans and think pieces criticizing her choice to seemingly endorse Suno, one of the most polarizing companies in the music industry today.

(See: Billboard‘s feature in March on the company titled “Is Suno the Music Industry’s Biggest Nightmare — or Greatest Hope?”).

In the past three days alone, Billboard has reported on three separate lawsuits against Suno concerning alleged infringement on artist rights. Jason Isbell filed a class action suit at the end of August accusing Suno of violating artists’ name, image and likeness rights, while independent Gerencia 360 Music claimed in a recent legal complaint that Suno had illegally trained its AI model using music owned by the label.

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