Suno Pulls Mary J. Blige Ad, Says She Never Authorized Campaign

A controversial Suno advertisement featuring Mary J. Blige has been pulled after the AI music company revealed that the singer never actually authorized the campaign. The spot began circulating online over the weekend and showed Blige sitting in a studio as a producer showcased Suno’s generative AI tools. In the 85-second video, he builds a song called “Pretty Flowers” that is akin to Blige’s classic R&B sound, with Blige suggesting the addition of strings and a beat before reacting positively to the results. Shorter edits of the clip quickly spread across social media, prompting backlash from fans who believed the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul was endorsing generative AI in music. Get Mary J. Blige Tickets Here Turns out, things weren’t quite that simple. Suno now says it arranged the campaign through someone who falsely claimed to represent Blige. “We entered into a business deal with someone who presented themselves as Ms. Blige’s official representative,” the company said in a statement to Variety. “As soon as we learned this was not the case, and that Ms. Blige was uncomfortable, we terminated the advertising campaign.” A representative for Blige declined to comment further, so qu...