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Sheryl Crow has slammed Drake for using AI-generated Tupac Shakur vocals in a song criticizing Kendrick Lamar.
In April, Drake released “Taylor Made Freestyle,” a scathing song aimed at both Taylor Swift and Lamar, featuring AI versions of Lamar's West Coast rap idols Tupac and Snoop Dogg. A week after its release, the “Hotline Bling” rapper dropped the song after Tupac's estate threatened to sue.
In a recent interview with the BBC, Crowe, 62, denounced the use of AI to recreate the voices of deceased artists.
“You can't bring the dead back to life and trust that they're going to support it,” she said. “I'm sure Drake thought, 'Oh, I shouldn't have done that, but I'll apologize later.' But it's already been done, and people will find it even if he deletes it.”
“It's an abomination,” she added. “It goes against the life force that exists within all of us.”
Drake has been in a long-running feud with rapper Lamar, who in March attacked fellow rap rival J. Cole in his song “Like That,” claiming that he doesn't represent the genre's “Big Three” and is just his “big self.”
After a few diss tracks, Drake fired back with a “Taylor Made Freestyle.”
Shortly after its release, litigation lawyer Howard King sent Drake a cease and desist letter, informing him that if he did not remove the song within 24 hours, his estate would “pursue all legal remedies.”
“The Estate is deeply disappointed and disheartened by the unauthorized use of Tupac's voice and personality,” King wrote. “Not only is this record a flagrant infringement of Tupac's name and the legal rights of the Estate, it is also a blatant misappropriation of the legacy of one of the greatest hip-hop artists of all time, a use that the Estate never authorized.”
King added that the state was also unhappy with the lyrics targeting Lamar. “The unauthorized and equally regrettable use of Tupac's voice adds an insult to injury to Kendrick Lamar, who is a good friend of the Estate and has publicly and privately respected Tupac and his work,” he said.
Last month, Drake released the three-part “Family Matters” in which he calls Lamar hypocritical for his pro-black activism, accuses him of domestic violence and of “begging” Tupac's estate to sue him for using an AI version of the late rapper in a diss song.
