Sheryl Crow is blasting Drake for using an AI version of Tupac Shakur’s voice in a recent song dissing Kendrick Lamar.
Talking about the threat generative artificial intelligence poses to artists in an interview with BBC last week, the country-pop singer said the technology is a “slippery slope” that “goes against everything humanity is based on.”
Crow said she was particularly disturbed by Drake’s use of AI on the track “Taylor Made Freestyle.” The track contains a verse dissing Lamar delivered by an AI-generated imitation of Shakur, who died in 1996.
“You cannot bring people back from the dead and believe that they would stand for that,” Crow told the BBC.
Shakur’s estate felt similarly, demanding Drake take down the track on April 24. The next day, Drake pulled “Taylor Made Freestyle” from his Instagram.
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The “If It Makes You Happy” singer went on to wonder why Drake ever thought it was a good idea to release the track.
“I’m sure Drake thought, ‘Yeah, I shouldn’t do it, but I’ll say sorry later,’” she said. “But it’s already done, and people will find it even if he takes it down. It’s hateful. It is antithetical to the life force that exists in all of us.”
Crow previously railed against AI in her latest album, “Evolution,” released in spring.
On the album’s titular track, she recounts her own experience hearing an uncanny AI creation, singing, “Turned on the radio and there it was / A song that sounded like something I wrote / The voice and melody were hauntingly / So familiar that I thought it was a joke.”
In a statement shared in tandem with the song’s release, Crow said, “Stephen Hawking worried that A.I. would replace humans.”
“As a mom, I want to leave a better world for my children, a healthier planet,” she wrote, asking “Is A.I. going to be a benevolent partner in these goals or not? It’s unsettling, and this song deals with those anxieties.”