AlertDialog setItems with a list from room database: getValue() returns null

Question

I'm simply trying to select from a list of Artists in my room database in an AlertDialog. Calling getValue() on the LiveData object from the viewModel consistently gives me null. Do I really need to make a ListAdapter for something this simple?! Why is it so hard to get some strings from the database?

ArtistDao

@Dao
interface ArtistDao {
    @Query("SELECT * FROM artist_table")
    fun getAllArtists(): Flow<List<Artist>>

    @Query("SELECT name FROM artist_table")
    fun getArtistList(): Flow<List<String>>

    @Insert(onConflict = OnConflictStrategy.IGNORE)
    suspend fun insert(artist: Artist)
}

Menu Selection Option in Main Activity

R.id.action_choose_artist -> {
            //create artist list
            val testList = songViewModel.artists.value
            val artistList = testList?.toTypedArray()

            // User chose choose artist action
            val alertDialog: AlertDialog? = this.let {
                val builder = AlertDialog.Builder(it)
                builder.apply {
                    setTitle(R.string.choose_artist)
                    setItems(artistList, DialogInterface.OnClickListener { dialog, which ->
                        // The 'which' argument contains the index position
                        // of the selected item
                        artistName = artistList!![which]
                    })
                }
                // Create the AlertDialog
                builder.create()
            }
            alertDialog?.show()
            true
        }

SongViewModel

val artists: LiveData<List<String>> = repository.artists.asLiveData()

SongRepository

val artists: Flow<List<String>> = artistDao.getArtistList()