The latest viral Drake AI hit is just a repurposed SoundCloud rap

But it surely seems, “Not a Sport” isn’t precisely a brand-new tune. The Verge discovered that the observe consists of a number of preexisting components, with the first new addition being the Drake voice.

The fakers took the vocals from this a cappella rap posted to Looperman, a web site that hosts audio loops, samples, and sounds that musicians can repurpose to create songs. The observe is accessible to be freely used for noncommercial functions, and it’s popped up in dozens of SoundCloud tracks because it was first posted in 2019. Artists are alleged to credit score the rap to its creator, Sean Pharo.

The creators of “Not a Sport” reworked Pharo’s vocals with the AI-generated “voice” of Drake, then layered that over a modified model of a beat by the artist Cedes, which is on the market on the beat market BeatStars. All of a sudden, two parts that hadn’t been a success earlier than — the beat and the unique rap — have been going viral because of Drake. Pharo and Cedes didn’t reply to requests for remark.

This comparatively low-effort creation reveals simply how highly effective the flexibility to clone a musician’s voice is — and simply how simple it’s for creators to assemble a brand new observe from a serious artist. “Not a Sport” remains to be obtainable on SoundCloud and can be again on YouTube after getting reuploaded. SoundCloud, YouTube, and Drake’s label, Common Music Group, didn’t instantly reply to The Verge’s request for remark.

Final week, the AI Drake tune “Coronary heart on My Sleeve” — considerably suspiciously — went viral after getting posted to the comparatively new TikTok account @ghostwriter977. Whereas UMG responded by issuing copyright takedowns, Drake remained silent regardless of talking out about an AI cowl of him performing an Ice Spice observe. This sparked questions on whether or not this will likely have been some form of publicity stunt by Drake and UMG or if the promotional group linked to Ghostwriter’s account, Laylo, was one way or the other concerned. Laylo has since denied these claims.