Artificial intelligence may be changing the way music is written and produced, but Montserrat’s calypso community should be more concerned about the art form’s failure to evolve, the competence of competition judges and the protection of creators’ rights.
Those were among the issues raised during a wide-ranging discussion on ZJB Radio on Saturday, August 8, 2026, hosted by Franklyn “Al G” Greaves with ZJB broadcaster and calypso songwriter Cecil “Cepeke” Lake.
The panel included veteran calypsonian and songwriter Herman “Cupid” Francis, musician and producer Eddie “Prince” Duberry, producer Joel “Bluff” Watts and broadcaster Mike Jarvis, joining from London.
The discussion explored the impact of AI on calypso production and competition, including whether AI-assisted songs should be permitted, how their use could affect judging and who ultimately owns work created using generative technology.
While the panellists differed on whether AI threatens human creativity, they broadly agreed that the technology is already embedded in daily life and will continue to develop.
Francis said the satisfaction he receives from songwriting comes from transforming an idea into a completed composition.
“The pleasure in the whole thing for me is not getting the ideas, it’s putting it together,” he said. “That’s what gives me a sense of accomplishment when I’m finished.”
He argued that asking a programme to develop an idea into lyrics would remove an important part of his role as a writer.
“If I’m just going to say to a machine or to a gadget, ‘I want this and I want that,’ it makes me no longer a writer, and it gives me no further satisfaction,” Francis said.
Prince offered a different perspective, describing AI as a tool that can accelerate the production process without necessarily replacing the musician’s creative authority.
“There is no AI that can be created that would ever have the creative ability that I have as a writer, as a musician, as a producer,” he said. “It’s persons like me that AI is modelled after. I am the person who teaches AI. It’s not the other way around.”
He explained that AI-assisted production requires input, processing and output, with the creator responsible for supplying instructions and refining the result.
Prince said he uses AI-generated material as a starting point, downloading individual stems and transferring them into other production software. He then adds percussion, instrumentation and human vocals to achieve a more authentic Caribbean sound.
“I have a responsibility to myself as a creator, just like Cupid, just like Cepeke, and we will be better for it,” he said. “Montserrat’s art form will be better for it because the knowledge that we gain is what’s going to help us to build and advance ourselves further.”
He cautioned that fear could prevent musicians from understanding and benefiting from the technology.
“Don’t worry about whether we’re going to be able to stay authentic, because that is up to us and how we use it,” Prince said.
Should AI-Assisted Songs Enter Competitions?
Much of the discussion centred on whether calypso competition rules should be changed to address AI-assisted songs.
Greaves questioned whether a contestant using generative AI could gain an unfair advantage over a songwriter relying entirely on human ability. The panel also considered whether existing categories such as originality, lyrics, melody and creativity remained adequate.
Prince argued that AI assistance was not fundamentally different from a calypsonian performing a composition written by another person. If competitors are not required to write their own songs, he said, the source of the composition should not affect how the performance is judged.
“What does it matter if that song came from ChatGPT or Suno AI?” he asked.
Francis, however, drew a distinction between entertainment and competition. He said a scored competition may require safeguards that are unnecessary when music is being produced solely for public enjoyment.
“If you’re going to enter a song into a competition, I believe, like St Vincent, like Trinidad and so on, you have to put some sort of rules around it,” he said.
By the end of the discussion, Francis said there was no immediate need to change the judging criteria, but organisers should continue monitoring the technology.
“Change is inevitable,” he said. “It really makes no sense to fight it. What we need to do for our competitions is to monitor it properly and see what adjustments we who are creating these shows can make to accommodate it, but still keep as relevant as possible what we do.”
Jarvis said the arrival of AI created an opportunity to reconsider the wider framework governing calypso competitions, including disclosure, judging criteria and the allocation of credit.
“Now we are talking about taking another look at the entire framework of calypso competition, how calypso competitions are judged, how they are managed, issues of disclosure, issues of criteria,” he said.
The conversation also questioned whether judges possess sufficient knowledge of composition, arrangement and musical production to assess originality, particularly as the line between human and machine-assisted work becomes harder to identify.
Prince was blunt in his criticism of appointing judges who lack experience in songwriting or musicianship.
“Why then do we have persons judging a competition who have no idea how to write a song or how a song is written, never played a musical instrument?” he asked.
Calypso Must Continue To Evolve
Watts offered perhaps the sharpest assessment of the debate, arguing that AI poses less of a threat to calypso than the genre’s reluctance to evolve.
“The problem is Montserrat’s music has become its own AI because it’s not evolving,” he said.
Watts said generative platforms often struggle to reproduce authentic calypso and soca because the music changes rapidly and is not adequately represented in the data used to train AI systems. The result, he said, is frequently generic “tropical” music or arrangements reminiscent of much older calypso.
Rather than fearing AI, he urged musicians to experiment with new sounds, combine calypso with other genres and investigate how the technology could help them reach audiences beyond Montserrat.
“We have stopped evolving, and that’s what happened,” Watts said. “AI is not our problem. We are our own problems.”
He also highlighted the difficulties Montserratian musicians face in distributing music internationally and collecting royalties. He said the island’s small size and limited participation in international rights-management systems created more immediate challenges for local artists than generative AI.
“AI is actually a little gate that we could use because our geography is so small,” he said. “I think we should acknowledge and use AI as an advantage.”
Ownership And Royalties Remain Unresolved
The programme also moved beyond competition rules to consider copyright, publishing rights, royalties and the ownership of live recordings.
Prince noted that the rights attached to AI-generated music can depend on the conditions imposed by the platform being used. He said creators must understand whether a free or paid service gives them the right to use a generated track commercially.
The panellists also questioned who owns recordings made during Montserrat’s calypso competitions and how local songwriters and performers are compensated when their music is broadcast.
Jarvis recalled previous disputes involving recordings made at Festival competitions and said formal agreements would be needed to establish whether the rights belonged to performers, broadcasters or event organisers.
The issue, he said, becomes even more complicated when AI is involved because the technology can imitate voices, reproduce musical styles and draw from existing creative work without making the source apparent to listeners.
Jarvis urged musicians and organisers to adopt a cautious approach, recalling advice offered by calypsonian Keith “De Bear” Morson: “Use AI, but don’t let AI use you.”
The discussion ended without a single position on how much AI should be permitted in competition. However, it established that the debate is about much more than whether a machine can write a calypso.
It is also about who gets credit, who gets paid, whether judges are equipped to evaluate contemporary music and whether Montserrat’s calypso tradition can embrace new technology without surrendering the human experiences that give the art form its distinctive voice.
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