The threat isn’t the technology. It’s what the fear of it makes you do.
Dimitri Vegas said it in a Forbes Belgium interview: if you want a career in music, start now. Because in two years, AI will be so good that it’ll be too late.
That quote made the rounds. And I get why it lands — it’s urgent, it’s from someone who’s been at the top of this industry for years, and it plays directly into something a lot of producers are already quietly afraid of.
But I think it’s pointing at the wrong thing. And believing it might do more damage to your career than any AI model ever will.
The Fear Is Real. The Conclusion Is Wrong.
Nobody serious is pretending AI isn’t changing things. Ralph — one half of Bass Jackers — said it plainly in our conversation: “We’re not there yet, but it’s pretty amazing what AI can do. It’s pretty logical to think we can be replaced and become obsolete.”
He also said something right after that I think matters more: “Sometimes I already feel obsolete, surrounded by so many more talented people than me. What do I bring to the table? I have those doubts every now and then.”
Ralph. Bass Jackers. Sold out Academy LA. Has those doubts.
The feeling of potential obsolescence isn’t new, and it isn’t caused by AI. It’s part of what it means to make creative work in a competitive space. AI just gave that feeling a louder name.
The producers most at risk right now aren’t the ones being replaced by algorithms. They’re the ones making decisions from panic instead of purpose.
What Fear-Driven Careers Actually Look Like
When Dimitri Vegas says “start now or it’s too late,” the implicit message is: move fast, the window is closing, urgency is everything.
And when you internalize that, here’s what tends to happen.
You start optimizing for speed instead of growth. You chase formats and trends because those feel safer than developing your own sound. You measure yourself against results you haven’t earned yet and call it falling behind. You release things before they’re ready because waiting feels like losing time.
Jobke put it directly: “I never go with the fear thing — you have to start now, you have to see results, you’re going to outrun yourself. Fear is just bad.”
That’s not naivety. That’s someone who’s watched the pattern play out enough times to know where it leads.
Building a music career out of fear produces the exact thing you’re afraid of — something fragile, rushed, and built on the wrong foundation.
The Actual Threat AI Poses (And What It Doesn’t)
Here’s what AI will likely do: make average music cheaper and faster to produce. Flood platforms with more content. Make it harder to stand out on sound alone.
Here’s what it won’t do: make people stop wanting to follow other people.
That’s the part that gets missed in the panic. Joey said it clearly: “People want to follow people. I want to be a fan of someone. And that someone needs a skill, a story, a reason to care.”
AI can generate a track. It cannot generate the story of how you got here. It cannot build the relationship between you and the people who’ve been following your growth for three years. It cannot be the artist who played that show, made that mistake publicly, came back with something better.
Your music career was never just about the music. It was always about who you are as the person making it.
The producers who will struggle are the ones whose entire value proposition is technical — cleaner mixdowns, faster output, better sound design. Those are skills worth having, but they’re not the reason anyone becomes a fan.
The ones who last will be the ones who’ve been building something real: a perspective, a consistent presence, a genuine connection with an audience that chose them specifically.
So What Should You Actually Do?
Not panic. Not sprint. Not make career decisions based on someone else’s fear timeline.
Ralph’s take on this was simple: “If you want to make music, start now. Why start later?” But the emphasis is on the why — not because the window is closing, but because there’s no good reason to wait if you love doing it.
Start now because consistency over years is the only thing that actually builds a career. Start now because the artists who’ll still be relevant in ten years are the ones who used this period to go deeper into their craft and their audience, not the ones who panicked and pivoted.
Get good enough that people who have no reason to care about you start caring. Build something — a sound, a body of work, a community — that doesn’t depend on any single platform or trend to survive.
The artists who treat AI as a reason to build more intentionally will be fine. The ones who treat it as a reason to move faster and cut corners will use it to accelerate their own irrelevance.
The Question Worth Sitting With
At some point in our conversation, Ralph was talking about his doubts — the feeling of being surrounded by more talented people, wondering what he actually brings. And then he said: “I see people playing my music, and all that doubt is gone.”
Not because the external validation solved the underlying question. But because it reminded him what the work is actually for.
That’s the mindset that survives all of it — the algorithm changes, the trend cycles, the AI models, the uncertainty. Not confidence that you’ll win. Just clarity about why you’re here.
AI is a tool. Fear is a choice. The question isn’t whether the industry is changing — it is, it always has been, it always will be. The question is what you’re building, and whether you’re building it for the right reasons.
That’s the only thing that’s ever been in your control.
If this landed for you, follow me on Substack. I write about the mindset and decisions behind building a real music career — the stuff that doesn’t fit in a YouTube tutorial — straight to your inbox.