‘Does This Count as Mine?’ Five Songs in Which Mike Sain't Louis Argues with His Own Impostor Syndrome

Madrid, 25 October 2026. There is a question nobody asks Mike Sain't Louis in interviews, because he asks it himself first. It usually arrives just after a song comes out, when someone writes to say they loved it. Instead of simply feeling pleased, a small, very polite voice whispers: does this count as yours?

Mike Sain't Louis is an indie alternative artist based in Madrid who calls himself ‘the first AI singer-songwriter’. He writes every one of his lyrics and works as composer, music producer, art director and CEO of his independent label, MIKE SAIN'T LOUIS. The music and the vocal performance are generated with an artificial intelligence tool that he directs, choosing, discarding and asking again. In about two years he has released 273 singles and more than 280 music videos as part of his project PLANETA GAYFOLK.

The voice in his head has a name. In 1978 the psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes described the ‘impostor phenomenon’: high achievers convinced they did not deserve their success. It is not a clinical diagnosis, but it is common, and it weighs most on people who arrive at a craft through an unusual door. Creating with AI is about as unusual as doors get.

‘I'm not a psychologist and I won't pretend to be one,’ Mike says. ‘But I know that voice very well. The trick has been to answer it with songs instead of letting it decide whether I publish.’

Here are five of those answers.

1. ‘3 años de garantía’ — the boyfriend with a receipt

The first is the funniest. A handsome dark-haired lad is advertised on television; the narrator orders one, pays cash on delivery and enjoys a month's free trial and, above all, a three-year warranty. Things go wonderfully until, right on schedule, the product starts to fail. Cue complaint forms, the Madrid regional consumer office and a reference number recited in full. The official's verdict: the accused says he is very much in love, and there is not much they can do.

The narrator, on boyfriend number nine, reaches a conclusion that doubles as a wink at his own method: it would be better to create a boyfriend with artificial intelligence. It is a joke about consumer culture and bad relationships, but also about the anxieties around AI, flipped on their head. The machine is not the impostor here. The boyfriend is.

2. ‘Mood’ — whose words are these?

‘Mood’ is barely a lyric at all. It is a list of English words that have crept into everyday Spanish: party, baby, flow, sexy, cool, feeling, vibe, outfit, hype, and on it goes, before the title repeats like a stamp.

Read in the context of impostor syndrome, it becomes a quiet provocation. Every one of those words is borrowed, yet nobody accuses a Madrid teenager of not owning their slang. Authorship, the song suggests, is often a matter of what you do with materials that came from somewhere else.

3. ‘La insignia de artista’ — the badge nobody hands out

This is the song where the impostor voice takes human form. Someone fairly important, with contacts in the music industry, sets the test: are you talent or a chequebook? If your music is an algorithm, the reasoning goes, then it has no heart, no soul and nothing distinctive, and you do not deserve the artist's badge.

The narrator even wonders whether a singer he has admired all his life would disapprove of his using AI, and ends on a tired admission that he might give up. It is the most vulnerable of the five, because it does not win the argument. It simply records how the argument feels.

4. ‘Discutiendo con la IA’ — pressing the button is not the job

If the previous track sounds defeated, this one bites back. The lyric goes after the cliché that using AI means pressing a button: if it is that easy, the narrator says, do it yourself. Then comes the real picture of his working day, spent constantly arguing with the AI while Locomía, the fan-waving Spanish pop group, plays in the background.

‘People imagine magic,’ Mike says. ‘What I actually do is argue. I reject versions, I change a word, I ask again. A machine can generate in minutes. Deciding what deserves to exist takes me days.’

5. ‘Tus letras son basura’ — mine, even if imperfect

The list closes with a reply. In his note on the song, Mike recalls years of being told his lyrics were too strange, too intense, too personal. What bothers some people, he writes, is that he writes them himself, with his own history and scars, and no label or producer corrects them. He admits they may not be perfect. But they are his, and that, in a world of masks, is worth more than fake applause.

It is the closest thing in his catalogue to a settled answer to that weekly question.

Why this matters to British listeners

The UK has had its own lively debate about AI and the creative industries, from authorship to the rights of musicians whose work trains these tools. Mike does not dismiss those concerns; he has written that many of them deserve serious discussion. What these five songs add is the inside view: what doubt feels like for someone who writes the words, directs the result and still wonders whether it counts. His humour, irreverent and unashamedly camp, should also feel at home with audiences raised on British comedy.

Where to listen

All five songs, like the rest of his catalogue, can be streamed and downloaded free of charge at mikesaintlouis.com, each with its lyrics. They are also on Spotify, Deezer and the other major platforms.

About Mike Sain't Louis

Mike Sain't Louis is a Madrid-based indie alternative artist who presents himself as ‘the first AI singer-songwriter’. He writes all his own lyrics, releases through his own label, MIKE SAIN'T LOUIS, and became known to many in 2024 when ‘Tan Cateto’ went viral on TikTok. His GAYFOLK trilogy (Descubierto un nuevo planeta llamado GAYFOLK, Ojalá se pudiera viajar a GAYFOLK and El día de la liberación) follows a journey to a planet where everyone can live as they are, across electropop, copla, alternative pop and ballads.

Press contact

https://mikesaintlouis.com info@mikesaintlouis.com Instagram: @planetagayfolk