Tupac Shakur’s estate has sent a cease-and-desist letter threatening to sue Drake over his recent Kendrick Lamar diss track featuring AI-generated vocals from the late rapper, reports Billboard.
Howard King, the attorney representing Tupac’s estate, has given Drake 24 hours to confirm he will pull “Taylor Made Freestyle” from social media, or all legal remedies will be pursued against him.
“The Estate is deeply dismayed and disappointed by your unauthorized use of Tupac’s voice and personality,” the letter reads. “Not only is the record a flagrant violation of Tupac’s publicity and the estate’s legal rights, it is also 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.”
In addition, the letter took issue with Drake using Tupac’s vocals to diss Kendrick: “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.”
Drake dropped “Taylor Made” this past Friday as the latest salvo in his beef with Kendrick, who kicked it off in March with a verse on Future and Metro Boomin’s song “Like That.” On the track, Drake uses AI vocals made to sound like Tupac and Snoop Dogg to bait his rival.
“Kendrick, we need ya, the West Coast savior/ Engraving your name in some hip-hop history,” AI Tupac raps. “If you deal with this viciously/ You seem a little nervous about all the publicity/ Fuck this Canadian lightskin.”
For his part, Snoop Dogg commented on the track in a social media video, saying, “They did what? When? How? Are you sure?”
Somewhat ironically, Drake was involved in an AI controversy last year, when an artist named ghostwriter released a song called “heart on my sleeve” featuring AI-generated vocals created to mimic Drake and The Weeknd.
Discover more from reviewer4you.com
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
