Drake, Kendrick Lamar, and The Mass Adoption Phase of AI
Song of the Week: The Pharcyde - Runnin’
Taking it back to the 90s this week. A little Pharcyde to kick off this Friday.
If you’ve never heard this joint, it was produced by J. Dilla and it’s a really dope record. As for the genius of Dilla? Listen close to the drums - the pattern don’t repeat at all. Crazy.
With that in mind, let’s get to today’s piece.
As the feud between Drake & Kendrick Lamar continues, a growing trend that was on many people’s 2024 bingo card started taking center stage:
Deep Fakes.
But not just any deep fakes, REALLY convincing deep fakes.
We’ve seen their power in video, but this battle has illuminated how far audio artificial intelligence tools have come in just under a year.
In short, we’ve officially passed the point of “I can tell that’s fake.”
We are now at the point of “Wait, is this real?”
That’s a crazy thought, especially in the context of this battle.
Hip-hop fans have been waiting for this to jump off for years, and it’s finally here only to be plagued by fake diss records, questionable leaks, and convincing AI songs.
“fans” or stans are even making their own versions of diss records.
The records are so convincing that media publications picked them up without due diligence to get credit for “breaking” the record.
This all points to a larger cultural truth:
We’re finally reaching a point of mass adoption with AI.
Much in the same way that people started to experiment with NFTs, the average person is now able to start using AI tools with ease.
Let’s talk about it.
A. Casual Use of AI Tools
While Photoshop and other applications have been rolling out AI features to much acclaim, audio applications have been a bit slower to come around.
However, because of the beef, there’s been an uptick in the use of consumers on social media (and the rappers themselves) using AI to create viral moments during the beef.
Here are a few of ones that stood out:
I. A fake Kendrick Lamar Diss Track
After Drake dropped his diss record ‘Push Ups,’ fans eagerly awaited a response from Kendrick.
On the following Monday, a snippet of a rumored Kendrick Lamar diss track began to circulate online.
To the average fan it sounded like something big was on the way, however the vocals seemed slightly… odd.
Just like the initial leak of Drake’s Diss track, fans weren’t quite sure if they were hearing a real Kendrick Lamar record or artificial intelligence.
As time soon revealed, not only was it an AI record — it was actually written and produced by a 23 year old artist from California who just felt like making his own diss record.
The fake Record:
And this is the artist behind the record:
As the artist explains, he didn’t really expect the song to be such a big deal. He was just having fun and emulating his favorite rapper.
However, the track caught steam and began circulating.
It marked a pivotal moment in audio AI as the track sounded so convincing that publications and crews demanded proof that it was indeed a fake song and not an actual leak from Kendrick’s crew.
II. Taylor Made Freestyle
Drake has been signaling to media personalities that he’s been waiting for this feud to reach a boiling point for years.
The only issue is that he hasn’t been able to get Kendrick to respond after the initial jab.
In his most recent attempt to get K. Dot into the ring, Drake sought out hackers to teach him about AI audio tools and with the newfound knowledge he created a freestyle — Taylor Made (you gotta find the link ya self my g.).
An artist of Drake’s magnitude using AI signals that something is in the air, and it even caught the attention of Tupac’s estate who have allegedly issued a cease and desist to Drake concerning the record.
III. Drake’s IG Trolling
While awaiting a response from Kendrick, Drake has used social media to troll the others who were involved in the beef including Metro Boomin.
The first troll was a deep fake of Metro as Nick Cannon’s character in the movie Drumline — something that had social media in a frenzy when they saw it.
Building on that troll, OVO allegedly sent out a Metro Boomin video game to influencers.
The cover of the video game looks reminiscent of Madden/NBA 2k, except it features Metro’s face.
After the screen loads, street drummers with Metro Boomin’s face plastered over them playing a drum set.
Ever since then, Drake has been using different means of AI to continue trolling including music AI tools like Udio to make AI-generated songs out of the lyrics from his diss track “Push Ups.”
B. Attitudes are Changing
Haters gone say it was AI…
About 10 years ago, a hologram version of Tupac appeared at Coachella. (Although it’s technically “Virtual Reality Pac”, there’s naturally an AI component to it).
Fans were immediately upset about it, and the creators were blasted in publications.
However, as the past few weekends have shown, sentiments are slowly changing.
Whereas the sentiment around AI Tupac years ago was overwhelmingly negative, The recent use of AI Pac was met with mixed reviews — some thought of it as a genius and clever way to troll an opponent, while others saw this as a dangerous step forward in AI adoption.
The implication here is that if people aren’t that offended by the idea of one of Pop culture’s biggest stars using AI this way, that could signal to record labels that in a few years time, fans might be ready to get an AI album of Pac or another deceased artist (personally, I hope they don’t do this — not a huge fan of posthumous music, but I digress).
C. Free Market Research
Listening to the Joe Budden Podcast recently, he highlighted something really important:
Because of this battle, the record labels are getting a ton of free market research from this beef and likely ready to adjust accordingly.
Think about the earlier points from above. Label heads are paying very close attention to this, realizing that some music fans are:
Enjoying the AI trolling
Using AI tools to join in on the beef
Not as opposed to hearing AI of deceased rappers as they were before
And these are just the conclusions we can reach without having data right in front of us.
As more tools roll out, and more aspects of this beef have fans questioning what they are actually hearing and even deciding to make themselves a part of the beef, labels (and tech companies) are gonna be armed with enough knowledge to roll out AI in a way that disarms the public — at the cost of Black Music, yet again.
EPILOGUE
It’s a little late to say to this but AI is 10000% here, and the effects of this battle are just being seeing seen.
We’re reaching a world where if your favorite artist can’t or won’t put out music anymore you can just create an entire project from song to music video without them.
Sh*t crazy out here. Let’s see how it develops.
One.