On April 19th, Drake leaked a track called Taylor Made Freestyle that he made to provoke Kendrick Lamar. This is nothing out of the ordinary, however, the interesting part of this diss track was the use of Artificial Intelligence. There is some important context to understanding the reason why Drake did this. Three days before Drake released his diss track, a TikToker made an AI Kendrick Lamar diss track and released it to the public. Then, someone who was reportedly an official source tried to claim that the diss track was real. However, it was exposed to be AI a day before Drake leaked Taylor Made Freestyle. Drake made this track to provoke Kendrick Lamar further, as the persona that Kendrick has built up throughout his career would be undoubtedly upset from this.
The issue lies in the use of the likeness of both dead and alive Hip-Hop icons, namely Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg. The use of AI on artistic endeavors has been debated since the inception of impressions or “deepfakes” done by AI. However, in most cases, AI has been used in visual mediums, and not in official music made by popular artists. This track made by Drake uses AI to mock Kendrick Lamar by making his idols say that he needs to respond quickly. The caliber of an artist like Drake warrants a serious discussion about what the boundaries are for use of AI. Many questions have been raised, such as the amount of money given to the respective likeness of the impressions. For example, Snoop Dogg was speculated to be paid for being featured on the track as an AI verse. This has raised discussion at Champe and on the internet for the future of music, as anyone could use AI and say that a big artist was featured on their track.
“I was laughing the whole track,” sophomore Aneesh Gudipati said. “I liked the use of AI in this specific case, however, I do not believe it should be normalized in this industry.”
