The use of AI remains one of the hottest topics in music. Countless artists have maintained the importance of raw, human expression. Critics argue that using generative artificial intelligence is creatively bankrupt, forgoing all the work and smoothing all the edges that make music great and interesting. Not to mention, it takes up an alarming amount of water every day. However, there are artists like Timbaland and Will.i.am that insist we all need to get with the times already. Now, we can add RZA to the list of staunch AI defenders.
The legendary Wu-Tang producer spoke on a CES 2026 panel (captured by AfroTech), where he shared the convenience of using an AI assistant. Ultimately, RZA’s main argument is that using artificial intelligence will not only save time but also money. “Creativity is time. It could take three days to get something good with today’s technology. And with AI assistant, I could turn that three days to three hours. So even quicker,” he explained.
RZA Defends AI as Integral to His Creativity
To demonstrate how it works in action, he uses his recent filmmaking and music to show how AI helped bridge everything together. For the former, Bobby Digital used Google Gemini in order to refine the settings for the movie he was making. Since he had the idea, all he needed was something to fill in the lines with color.
“There’s an esoteric thought that I read. It said, ‘Any thought conceived can be expressed.’ And for a creator, that’s everything. You may have the thought and not the resources to express it,” RZA said. “I think now with this assistant intelligence, this alternative, this amplified intelligent ability, any creative thought conceived now can be expressed. I think that’s an amazing thing for us.”
As for the music, RZA used AI to create his classical album, A Ballet Through Mud, in 2024. For the end product, it was done with a live orchestra, as he wanted. However, using artificial intelligence for the demo allowed him a framework to reference when it was time to actually record. He said this saved him thousands of dollars.
“Instead of me spending 10-12 days of trying to get it right, we got that recorded in one day. You look at the orchestra, not to talk numbers here, but the orchestra could cost you up to $60k a day. So we mitigated,” RZA admitted. “And the idea of what I wanted them to do was already captured enough so that the human energy … the human pull of the string, accents, made the demo even better than I imagined.”
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