Drake almost found himself in legal trouble after he released a Kendrick Lamar diss track titled “Taylor Made Freestyle” with an AI-generated version of Tupac Shakur’s voice earlier this month.
On Thursday, the song, which was originally released on April 19, was scrubbed from Drake’s Instagram page and from his X account. An attorney with Tupac’s estate, Howard King, sent a cease-and-desist letter on Wednesday threatening legal action if the rapper, whose real name is Aubrey Drake Graham, did not take down the track from all public platforms, King said in a statement to Billboard.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]“The Estate is deeply dismayed and disappointed by your unauthorized use of Tupac’s voice and personality,” King’s statement said, in part.
King called the use of Tupac’s AI-vocals a “flagrant violation of Tupac’s publicity and the estate’s legal rights,” as well as “a blatant abuse of the legacy of one of the greatest hip-hop artists of all time.” He added that it’s not something the estate would have ever given approval for.
On the song, the AI-Tupac vocals rap: “Kendrick, we need ya, the West Coast savior / Engraving your name in some hip-hop history / If you deal with this viciously / You seem a little nervous about all the publicity.”
The song, which also features AI-generated vocals from Snoop Dogg, had reportedly been streamed more than a million times on different platforms. Snoop seemed to joke about his AI-feature in a video posted to Instagram. “They did what? When? How? Are you sure?”
“Taylor Made Freestyle” was a second diss track aimed at Kendrick after he seemingly dissed Drake and J.Cole on the song “Like That” with Future, which hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart late last month. Before that Drake had released “Push Ups” also dissing Kendrick, and last Friday, Drake posted “Taylor Made Freestyle” on Instagram with the caption: “While we wait on you I guess.” The post has since been deleted.
Drake, 37, hasn’t released a statement about the song’s removal.
