Drake isn’t into AI technology mimicking his vocals to cover another artist’s song. The “In My Feelings” hitmaker was clearly upset, calling it “the final straw” after a video surfaced featuring him rapping Ice Spice’s “Munch (Feelin’ U)”.
The 36-year-old Canadian superstar took to his Instagram Story on Friday, April 14 to let his opinion on the AI-generated cover be known. “This is the final straw AI,” he wrote along with a screenshot of The Shade Room’s post about Universal Music’s action to take down all AI versions of its artists.
The buzzing technology had voices of artists like Drake, Kanye West and Rihanna sampled to be processed through AI generators. While there were some positive responses from fans to the refreshing takes, this caused a debate surrounding ethics and how musicians will further generate revenue when technology can seemingly replace them within seconds.
To protect their artists and assets, Universal Music Group has asked Spotify, Apple Music and other streaming platforms to take down all AI versions of its artists. “We will not hesitate to take steps to protect our rights and those of our artists,” the company warned in an email obtained by the Financial Times.
UMG later issued a statement regarding the email sent to DSPs. “We have a moral and commercial responsibility to our artists to work to prevent the unauthorized use of their music and to stop platforms from ingesting content that violates the rights of artists and other creators. We expect our platform partners will want to prevent their services from being used in ways that harm artists,” it read.
Prior to Drake’s complaint, there were AI covers of Rihanna singing songs by Beyonce Knowles, Drake, Katy Perry and even Lana Del Rey. Fans were loving them, with Keke Palmer gushing, “That Rihanna AI is eating all y’all songs up,” while someone demands a whole album of AI-generated Rihanna covers. The Barbadian songstress has not responded to the controversial technology.
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