Does the listener care? Emotional resonance and connection in the age of algorithmic music

Abstract

As generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) models achieve high fidelity in mimicking musical structures and timbres, debates surrounding the role of human agency in listener engagement emerge. As the music industry moves to algorithmic music to ensure efficiency, it is not yet clear whether audiences are appreciating music as an independent sonic entity or as a communicative gesture of human will. This paper examined how perceived authorship affects emotional resonance in Kenyan university students through a mixed-methods explanatory sequential design. The study, anchored in the Theory of Ngoma, which views music as a complete social institution that needs vital force (Roho), questions the belief that acoustic perfection is synonymous with artistic value. A quantitative deceptive listening experiment (N = 76) was conducted across student populations drawn from Kabarak University, Kenyatta University, and the Technical University of Kenya. The qualitative phase employed expert elicitation, in which the insights of an international panel of musicologists, AI experts, and cultural theorists were sought. This professional discussion was employed to address the authenticity loss and to interpret the statistical declines in emotional attachment within the framework of African musicology, formalist aesthetics, and neoliberal commodification. The findings showed that explicit knowledge of AI authorship led to a directional decline in listener emotional resonance, even where the tracks were sonically indistinguishable. This suggests a fundamental audience preference for the human spirit and intentionality behind the sound. Consequently, these findings provide critical insights into the limitations of AI in replicating the functional, socio-spiritual, and communal dimensions of African musical arts.