Sheryl Crow criticizes Drake for using an AI version of Tupac Shakur’s voice in a recent song dissing Kendrick Lamar.
In an interview with the BBC last week, the country-pop singer spoke about the threat generative artificial intelligence poses to artists, saying 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 artificial intelligence in the song “Taylor Made Freestyle.” The song includes a verse dissing Lamar, delivered by an AI-generated impersonation of Shakur, who died in 1996.
“You can’t bring people back from the dead and expect them to tolerate it,” Crow told the BBC.
Shakur’s estate took a similar view, asking Drake to remove the song on April 24. The next day, Drake removed “Taylor Made Freestyle” from his Instagram.
The “If It Makes You Happy” singer further wondered why Drake ever thought it would be a good idea to release the track.
“I’m sure Drake thought, ‘Yeah, I shouldn’t do it, but I’ll apologize later,'” she said. “But it’s already happened, and people will find it even if he takes it down. It’s hateful. It’s antithetical to the life force that’s in all of us.”
Crow had already railed against artificial intelligence in her latest album “Evolution,” which was released in the spring.
In the album’s title track, she recounts her own experience of hearing an eerie AI creation, singing: “I turned on the radio and there it was / A song that sounded like I wrote it / The voice and the melody were hauntingly / So familiar I thought it was a joke.”
In a statement released at the same time as the song’s release, Crow said: “Stephen Hawking feared that AI would replace humans.”
“As a mother, I want to leave my children a better world, a healthier planet,” she wrote, asking, “Will AI be a benevolent partner in achieving these goals or not? That’s troubling, and this song addresses those fears.”
