Timbaland creates virtual artist as part of new genre, “A-Pop”
Timbaland is amping up his involvement in AI, unveiling a new company, artist, and even genre – all centred around AI.
Timbaland has been exploring AI in music for a while now – his latest move sees the creation of a virtual artist and a whole new genre. Additionally, the Grammy Award-winning producer has launched a new AI entertainment company, Stage Zero, which will focus on the new genre that Timbaland calls “A-Pop” (artificial pop).
As reported by Digital Music News, Stage Zero’s first project is an AI-generated pop artist named TaTa. She’s a pink-haired, virtual character created using the voice generation technology from AI music startup Suno. While TaTa hasn’t released a debut single yet, Stage Zero plans to build a full artist identity for her, including social media activity and AI-generated visuals.
Timbaland has been working with Suno since 2024, when he began uploading unfinished demos of his songs to the platform to experiment with its AI-generated voices. One of those voices stood out. “It came to a point where I’m like, ‘Yo, this voice, it’s amazing,’” he said in a quote shared by Kotaku. He also said he “fell in love” with it – and that voice became the foundation for TaTa’s sound.
Now serving as Suno’s creative director, Timbaland is going all-in on AI’s role in music. Despite Suno facing legal action from major labels over copyright concerns, he continues to back the platform and its creative potential.
Stage Zero co-founder and film producer Rocky Mudaliar described TaTa as just the beginning of what they hope will be a much bigger movement around the A-Pop genre. He emphasised that human creators will still play a role in the process, saying that music from Stage Zero will be “a collaborative process between human creators and… Suno.”
However, the response on social media has been mixed. Some fans have questioned whether this direction minimises the role of real artists. Mudaliar addressed the backlash by saying, “[AI is] not going anywhere,” and compared it to how influencers were first dismissed before becoming an accepted part of pop culture.
Whether A-Pop takes off or not, it’s clear that the music industry is changing – and artists of all kinds may soon be navigating a space where AI is part of the creative process.