I'm trying to tread lightly when it comes to questions of authenticity here in the AI era. Nevertheless, Nyka here, advertising herself as an R'nB singer from Houston, throws off a lot of the expected signals for an AI-generated artist. Social media accounts that appear to have only been created during 2025 (there's even a short, if inconclusive, Reddit thread asking whether she's real), six albums and a bunch of singles all dated 2025, at least a few of them with cover art that resembles some AI-generated memes, and, on Apple Music, a list of "similar artists" who have the same sorts of tell-tale aspects to their history. As for the music, it's modern slow-jam R'nB with Christmas-oriented lyrics, like "Mistletoe Kisses," "December Crushes," "Red Velvet Christmas," "Naughty List," "Snowed In," "Gift Wrapped," and "Midnight Sleigh Ride." If you didn't have the information I gave you earlier, you'd accept these songs as playlist candidates without question. As with the Dynalectric Orchestra reviewed here earlier, if Nyka isn't made up out of whole cloth and stray electrons, she and her friends are definitely using AI to bulk up her catalog. If AI isn't an issue for you, this streams and downloads everywhere.
January 2026 Archives
These guys are fronted by author/music critic Elizabeth Nelson and her husband Tim Bracy, and their usual mileu is protest and satire set to solid rock music often featuring members of other groups you might have heard of. For 2025 they dropped this driving rocker that appears to be about poking fun at people's family bios that they enclose with their Christmas cards. Cool stuff, and it should make you curious about their existing discography. Meanwhile, you can stream or download this in the usual places.
