Songfacts®:

• Xania Monet is a contemporary R&B singer who quickly built a fanbase with her soulful vocals on aching ballads like "How Was I Supposed To Know?" and incited a bidding war among record labels who were desperate to sign her. The thing is, Xania Monet isn't real. She's an AI artist created by Telisha Nikki Jones, a poet from Mississippi who doesn't know how to sing. Jones plugged her poems into Suno, a generative AI music platform, and added a handful of prompts - slow-tempo, R&B, female vocals, etc. - to bring Xania to life.
  
  Just four months later, the avatar became the first-known AI artist to appear on a Billboard airplay chart when "How Was I Supposed To Know?" debuted at #30 on Adult R&B Airplay. The milestone is an important feat, signaling radio stations' willingness to promote AI artists on the airwaves.
• Jones only uses AI to generate the music, not the lyrics, which are derived from real-life experiences about herself and her loved ones. For example, Jones losing her dad at 8-years-old led to Xania's anguish over growing up without a father figure on this popular heartache ballad. Because her late father wasn't around to teach her what real love looked like, Jones had to learn the hard way by getting her heart broken over and over again - painful lessons she wove into the song's lyrics and expressed through Xania's voice.
  
  "There's a real person behind Xania," Jones told CBS Mornings in a 2025 interview. "There's real emotion and soul put into those lyrics."
• "How Was I Supposed To Know?" initially went viral on TikTok and other streaming platforms when most folks thought Xania Monet was a real singer. The attention propelled the song to #1 on the R&B Digital Song Sales chart, and it debuted at #20 on the Hot R&B Songs chart.
• When news of Xania Monet's multimillion-dollar deal with Hallwood Media made headlines, it generated a lot of controversy among traditional artists. R&B singer Kehlani was one the most vocal detractors, sharing her disdain on TikTok for the use of generative AI in the creative arts, "in which people have worked hard for, trained for, slept on the floor for, got injuries for, worked for for their entire lives. I'm sorry, I don't respect it."
  
  But Jones balked at the idea that she took a shortcut to success when she created Xania, saying, "I wouldn't call it a shortcut, because I still put in the work, and anything new that comes about that challenges the norm, and challenges what we're used to, you're going to get strong reactions behind it. And I just feel like AI is the new era that we're in, and I look at it as a tool, as an instrument, and utilize it."
• Xania Monet isn't just a voice - she's represented by a beautiful Black female avatar to go along with her silky smooth vocals. During Jones' interview on CBS Mornings, host Gayle King wondered about the implications of people using AI to create music under the guise of being a different race, such as a white man masquerading as a Black female R&B singer. Jones isn't sure how she feels about the idea, but it was a big part of the reason she decided to show herself to the world. "That's what I'm here to let them know, I'm Telisha. I'm a part of your culture; I'm a Black woman; I'm a creator; I'm an entrepreneur; I created Xania," she said.
• Xania Monet's music videos are also AI-generated. The clip for "How Was I Supposed To Know?" tells the stories of young girls who struggle in their relationships because their fathers are physically or emotionally absent. One girl is left broken-hearted when her dad forgets about her graduation, while another tearfully shares a phone call with her incarcerated father.