I FELL IN LOVE WITH AI MUSIC

And I'm still trying to decide if that's beautiful... or terrifying

- Words By: Sohil Nikam

It started like any other lazy evening.

I was at a bar, half-distracted, scrolling through YouTube on my phone, looking for some mellow background jazz to go with my drink. So I typed "jazz for studying," hit play on one of the top results, and let the music take over. Within seconds, I was hooked. The song was slow, smoky, and impossibly smooth, even as a husky female voice hummed her heart out with the emotion of a heartbroken lover. It sounded real. Like something you'd hear in a tiny New York bar.

For a while, I just listened, half in thought, half in awe. Whoever this artist was, she had it. That inexplicable thing jazz singers have: emotion wrapped in restraint. And then I caught myself thinking, I should find more of her songs. And that's where it got weird.

THE SEARCH FOR A GHOST

I opened YouTube, expecting to see a familiar artist name or maybe a record label. But the channel name was something I didn't recognise: Jazz Cloudy. I'd never heard of them, but the thumbnail was striking — a mysterious woman with red lipstick, cigarette smoke curling in the dark, staring straight into the camera. Neo-noir perfection. I clicked into the channel, and what do I see? Every video had a similar vibe, cinematic thumbnails, women in shadows, always that noir allure. There were other channels like it, too, with names like Noirelia and Nostalgic Jazz. It felt like I'd stumbled into some underground network of digital jazz bars.