Tupac Shakur’s estate blasts Drake’s “unauthorized” use of Pac’s voice on AI diss track against Kendrick Lamar.
Tupac Shakur’s estate is warning Drake about his recent use of the late rap legend’s voice on his AI-assisted diss track aimed at Kendrick Lamar.
A cease and desist letter revealed on Wednesday, April 24, requests the removal of Drake’s “Taylor Made Freestyle,” Rolling Stone reports. The AI-generated song served as the Toronto rapper’s second diss track response to Lamar following Lamar’s initial diss on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That.”
In the letter, sent by the estate’s lawyer Howard E. King, they called Drake’s use of Tupac’s voice in his diss track “a flagrant violation of Tupac’s publicity and the Estate’s legal right” and “a blatant abuse of the legacy of one of the greatest hip-hop artists of all time.”
“The Estate would never have given its approval for this use,” it added.
“The unauthorized, equally dismaying use of Tupac’s voice against Kendrick Lamar, a good friend to the Estate who has given nothing but respect to Tupac and his legacy publicly and privately, compounds the insult.”
The estate plans “to pursue all of its legal remedies” against Drake if he does not remove “Taylor Made Freestyle” from all platforms. In addition to rapping under the voice of Tupac in the first verse of the song, the “Hot Line Bling” rapper followed up with an AI-generated Snoop Dogg verse before rapping as himself in the third verse.
Shortly after the diss track was released, Snoop took to Instagram to share a video showing his seemingly unbothered response to Drake using his voice to diss Lamar.
“They did what? When? How? Are you sure? Y’all have a good night,” Snoop jokingly said. “Why everybody calling my phone, blowing me up? What the f*ck? What happened? What’s going on? I’m going back to bed. Good night.”
Drake released his “Taylor Made Freestyle” as a followup to his “Push Ups” diss released one week before calling out Lamar. The disses came in response to Lamar taking jabs at Drake and J. Cole on “Like That” released last month.
It took Drake two weeks to respond to Lamar’s initial diss. But now that he has two back-to-back tracks, the “Views” rapper is urging for a response from Lamar. As the feud continues, we can void the possibility of any additional AI-generated tracks that use Tupac’s voice.
Source: Black Enterprise
