Kabza De Small's music appear in documented AI training datasets more than 350 times.
The distinct sounds of South African music — from amapiano to local hip hop — are being quietly harvested by global artificial intelligence (AI) companies.
Technology firms are allegedly scraping local music catalogues to train AI models without the permission, credit or compensation of the artists whose work they use.
By feeding music from artists like Kabza De Small, Nasty C and DJ Maphorisa into machine learning systems, these companies are developing commercial software capable of generating synthetic music, raising fears that South African culture is being monetised without rewarding its creators.
Data scraping occurs when AI bots crawl the internet to download vast amounts of music and metadata. A data audit by cyber security firm Cybrsec Clinique found Kabza De Small appeared 360 times in documented AI training datasets, followed by DJ Maphorisa (270), Spirit of Praise (212), Nasty C (193) and Thomas Chauke (183).
