Meet Teme Segan — a corporate professional by day, and an AI music producer by night

At a large car rental corporation, Teme Sgen, an AI specialist and software engineer, has a hectic schedule. By day, he develops chatbots, builds apps, and helps explain how to use AI, all with the goal of giving the company an edge over its competitors. By night, he takes a very different approach to AI: creating Ethiopian music and music videos.

Now, just a few weeks after releasing his first album, Teme is reading the room and wondering whether he should keep going.

Teme is not new to the music industry. In fact, eight years ago around this time, he was at his friend’s studio writing lyrics and creating melodies for a friend who grew up in the United States.

“My friend was a rapper and he was fascinated about Ethiopian music and melodies,” Teme said. “He grew up here, so I was more knowledgeable about making music that had Ethiopian roots.”

Back then, making beats and producing songs took hours and sometimes days. That would begin to change on November 30, 2022, when OpenAI introduced ChatGPT.

In 2024, Teme, who received degrees in Software Engineering and Artificial Intelligence from Kennesaw State University in 2023 and 2024, respectively, realized that AI generated music could eventually become as popular as music created by humans after he was introduced to new AI software capable of generating music.

“The technology has made it possible for people with little knowledge of producing music to produce high quality AI generated songs,” Teme said.

But generating AI songs is not as simple as asking ChatGPT a question and copying the response. When it comes to music, the process is more complicated.

“The software doesn’t generate the same song twice. If it makes an error with the lyrics, you have to be very creative to keep the original song so you won’t lose it,” Teme said.

Before Teme decided to work on a full album, he asked a few people around him what they thought about his AI generated songs. He heard some discouraging comments, but positive feedback from friends and family convinced him that more people would eventually accept music created with the technology.

“A few friends and family members enjoyed some of the songs I had produced,” Teme said. “I knew once we get the quality right, the songs will have more listeners.”

On September 3, 2026, Teme released his first AI generated Ethiopian music album. To a certain degree, it was a historic moment, as relatively few artists had attempted to create an entire Ethiopian music project using AI.

The results have been encouraging. Since the album was released, videos from the project have received more than 15,000 views, while clips from the album and its music videos have generated more than 1 million views on Instagram.

“The responses from the public have been very encouraging,” Teme said. “This is a new technology. As we continue to improve, I have no doubt that we will be able to disrupt the music industry.”

The most popular song from the album has been “Sheger,” a reference to Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia. To meet the demand, Teme produced a music video for the song, which has received more than 130,000 views on Instagram.

For Teme, the experiment is about more than producing music with new technology. It is about testing what happens when artificial intelligence meets Ethiopian creativity, culture, and music. And if the early response is any indication, he may have found an audience willing to listen.

Source: FSX Business News