A 21-year-old Rwandan artist studying in France has sparked widespread debate about AI in music after an amapiano-inspired track he created using AI tools went viral, racking up more than 13 million combined YouTube views and climbing charts across Europe and Africa — all without being publicly credited to him.
Elvin Cena originally recorded “Let Me Be” in a French studio but was unhappy with the production. Rather than abandon the song, he uploaded his original recording to Suno AI, an AI music generation platform, and spent time adjusting prompts until he arrived at a version he was satisfied with. The melody and lyrics were his own, but the production and the female vocal on the second verse were AI-generated.
Unwilling to release the track under his main artist identity because of its AI origins, Cena uploaded it Feb. 8 under a separate channel called “The Second Voice.” He then left it alone.
The internet did the rest. The song hit one million views in three days, was used in more than 50,000 TikTok videos and climbed as high as No. 12 on the French YouTube charts, the top 16 in Belgium and the top 10 in both Kenya and Tanzania. Many listeners praised what they described as an “angelic” female vocal, unaware it was AI-generated.
Once the track’s momentum became clear, Cena added his name to the credits and used the exposure to promote his wider catalogue. “After it hit one million, I saw the song was climbing a lot of charts,” he said. “I added my name to also promote my work and my name, because it’s my project too.”
Cena was candid about the song’s origins. “I don’t want to say that it’s me who sang the song, because it’s not me,” he told OkayAfrica. Asked whether he feels guilty that listeners may not have known the track was AI-generated, he was direct: “No, not really. They have to understand. It’s just the beginning of the future.”
He drew a distinction, however, between using AI as a creative tool and outsourcing the entire creative act to a platform. “Use it to give you some ideas, not to use it 100 percent,” he said, emphasizing that the song’s core melody and lyrics originated with him.
The breakthrough carries a certain irony that Cena himself acknowledges. “It’s crazy,” he said. “I made ‘Let Me Be’ in like one hour, maybe 30 minutes, and it’s going viral. Since 2020, I’ve been working, but I never made a song like this.”
Suno AI, which launched publicly in late 2023, now generates approximately 7 million songs per day according to Billboard. The platform is currently at an impasse with major labels including Universal and Sony over licensing arrangements, according to the Financial Times — negotiations taking place far from Africa, where the practical implications of AI-generated music are already arriving.
