Drake and TheWeeknd are two of the hottest stars in music, so if they were to make a song or collaborate on one together, it wouldn’t be a surprise if it gained success over night. If the song was created by someone completely different however, forging the vocals of the two artist that would be more shocking, and that is exactly what happened last week. Although Drake and TheWeeknd have collaborated on several successful projects together including his 2011 “Crew Love” song, “Heart On My Sleeve” however, was a fake collaboration between the two artist that went viral last weekend. It turns out the song was actually created by an “anonymous musician” who goes by the name of “Ghostwriter”, according to NBC News.
In a deleted TikTok video ghostwriter said that “Artificial intelligence (AI) was used to create the song”, They wrote the song and then replaced their voice with Drake’s as stated by them in a comment of the deleted TikTok video, also according to NBC News. This song became quite successful pretty quick as it has garnered “over 11 million views across several videos” and “was streamed on Spotify hundreds of thousands of times” according to CNN News. According to Variety; “Heart On My Sleeve consist of two verses and a chorus sung by voices distinctively resembling” Drake and TheWeeknd’s. “Heart On My Sleeve, which was obviously a love song consisted of Drake and TheWeeknd singing about TheWeeknd’s ex girlfriend fellow star Selena Gomez, according to New York Post, amongst other sources.
After garnering “15 million views on TikTok” and “over 600,000 streams on Spotify”, also according to New York Post, The song was taken down from all major streaming platforms including Spotify and Apple amongst others. Record Labels obviously weren’t happy about this matter especially Universal Music Group (the record label that represents Drake and TheWeeknd). According to CNN News, Universal Music Group sent letters to the streaming platforms “asking them to block AI from training on the melodies and lyrics of their copywritten songs.” In a statement to CNN, they have called this a “violation of copyright law.” A Universal Music Group representative also told New York Post, that the incident “begs the question as to which side of history all stakeholders in the music ecosystem want to be on: the side of artists, fans and human creative expression, or on the side of deep fakes, fraud and denying artists their due compensation.”
Incidents like these have shaken up the music industry to its core as according, to Billboard; “industry organizations” said that “AI technology should not be used to “replace or erode human artistry.” Forging artists voices of course is nothing new as similarly enough David Guetta (whom is an artist himself) uploaded a YouTube video of him “playing a track using what sounds like Eminem’s voice” and titling it “Eminem but with AI (i’m not releasing it commercially obviously)” according, to Variety. Everyone loves a head-bopping or stress releasing jam as much as some enjoy creating them, but it is important that everyone respects each other’s voices, rights, and above all the law.
