The machine gets a speaking part: what I learned from a Madrid songwriter who writes AI into his lyrics as a character

Madrid, October 25, 2026 — Most of the AI-music conversations I have read this year sound the same. Someone argues the technology is theft, someone else argues it is the future, and nobody talks about songs. So it was a small relief to spend an evening with Mike Sain't Louis, an indie alternative artist based in Madrid who calls himself “the first AI singer-songwriter,” and discover that he has turned the whole argument into material. In his catalog, artificial intelligence is not only the tool in the studio. It is a character. It shows up as an insult, as a romantic fantasy, as a rival. And I have been laughing about it for two days.

First, the ground rules

I want to get the facts straight, because Mike is very clear about them himself. He writes every lyric. He is the composer, producer, artistic director, and CEO of his own independent label, MIKE SAIN'T LOUIS, with no record company and no middlemen. The music and the vocal performance are generated with AI, which he describes as his production and arrangement tool, the same role a drum machine or a synthesizer played for earlier generations. He does not sing; the voice is AI-generated. The words, the ideas, and the direction are his.

Over roughly two years he has released 273 singles and more than 280 music videos under one project, PLANETA GAYFOLK. It is built around a trilogy of albums about traveling to a planet where everyone can live exactly as they are. The sound swings from electropop to Spanish copla, from alternative pop to ballads, mostly in Spanish but also in English, French, and Portuguese. A lot of people found him in 2024, when “Tan Cateto” went viral on TikTok.

The hater's favorite word: “button”

The first time AI appears as a character in his catalog, Mike did not bring it. Someone else did. In “El segundo exacto,” the hater speaks first: that's artificial intelligence, you press a button and you're done. And if it doesn't make you money, why bother? Who cares about your feelings?

Anyone who has said out loud that they make music with AI has heard some version of that. What I found sharp is how Mike reads it. In his blog he points out that the hater's AI isn't really a technology at all. It is a moral shortcut, a way of saying you did nothing and deserve nothing. The button is the modern version of “anyone could do that.”

He doesn't answer with a lecture on workflow. He answers with a line I keep repeating: “Eso es inteligencia artificial, y un corazón real.” That's artificial intelligence, and a real heart. Both at once, not one against the other.

“Then you do it”

The title track of this whole idea is “Discutiendo con la IA” — “Arguing with AI.” It's short, furious, and gloriously camp. It opens at a party with no fans to flutter and goes straight at a critic who claims that using AI is just pressing a button. The reply, in bar-counter Spanish, amounts to: if it's that easy, honey, do it yourself.

What gets me is that the song refuses to defend itself with technical arguments. It never counts the hours, the discarded versions, who did what. It just hands the pen back. Then comes the line that actually hurts:

¿Por qué decías que como lo mío era IA no valía?

Why did you say that because mine was AI, it didn't count? That's the core of it, Mike writes. Not that AI is bad, but that it gets used to say your work doesn't matter — that your lyrics, your story, your exes, your nights crying in the street don't count because a machine produced the music. As if a computer had written the words. It didn't. The words are his.

And the song's best counterargument is an image rather than a thesis: a guy arguing with the machine all day long while Locomía plays in the background. If it were just pressing a button, why would he spend his days fighting with it?

A boyfriend with a three-year warranty

AI doesn't only show up for self-defense. Sometimes it's the punchline to a love story. In “3 años de garantía” — “3-Year Warranty” — the narrator buys a dark-haired boyfriend off a TV shopping channel. The boyfriend breaks down right as the warranty expires, the consumer office can't help, and this is already the ninth one. The song concludes, like a slogan, that it might be better to build a boyfriend with artificial intelligence.

I laughed, and then I thought about it longer than I expected. It's a joke about dating as consumer culture, and AI is just the latest product on the shelf. Mike puts it in his songs, he says, the same way he puts in ex-boyfriends, mothers-in-law, and nosy neighbors: because it's in his life, and everything in his life ends up in a lyric.

Why this matters to an American listener

We are having a loud national conversation about AI and creative work, and most of it happens in think pieces. Mike's songs approach the same questions from inside a queer pop catalog that is irreverent, uncensored, and very funny, and that makes them a useful counterweight. You don't have to agree with how he works to recognize the question his songs keep asking: who gets to say what counts as real? There's a more serious layer in his catalog, too. With professional support, he has turned years of relationships with narcissistic partners into songs, to make psychological abuse visible and help people who live through it feel seen and believed.

The photo that goes with this post shows him sitting among sand dunes at sunset, about as far from a server room as you can get.

Where to listen

Every Mike Sain't Louis song is free to stream and download at https://mikesaintlouis.com, each with its lyrics. His original post (in Spanish) is on his blog: https://mikesaintlouis.com/blog/discutiendo-con-la-ia-la-inteligencia-artificial-como-personaje-de-mis-letras. You'll also find him on Spotify, Deezer, and the other major platforms.

About Mike Sain't Louis

Mike Sain't Louis is a Madrid-based indie alternative artist and the self-described “first AI singer-songwriter.” He writes all his lyrics and runs his own label. His GAYFOLK trilogy — “Descubierto un nuevo planeta llamado GAYFOLK,” “Ojalá se pudiera viajar a GAYFOLK,” and “El día de la liberación” — imagines a journey to a planet of freedom.

Press contact: info@mikesaintlouis.com · https://mikesaintlouis.com · Instagram @planetagayfolk