A day after Tupac Shakur‘s estate threatened to sue over the use of AI-generated vocals from the late rapper, Drake has pulled his “Taylor Made Freestyle” down from social media.
Last Friday, Drake posted the Kendrick Lamar diss track — which also includes AI Snoop Dogg vocals — to his social accounts. The song made headlines for its controversial use of AI vocals from both the West Coast legends as well as for lyrics aimed at Lamar in an ongoing feud between the rappers, plus some shots taken at Taylor Swift as well.
On Wednesday, in a cease-and-desist letter obtained exclusively by Billboard, Howard King — a lawyer for the Tupac Shakur estate — told Drake (Aubrey Drake Graham) that he had to confirm he would pull down his “Taylor Made Freestyle” in less than 24 hours.
“The Estate is deeply dismayed and disappointed by your unauthorized use of Tupac’s voice and personality,” King wrote in the letter. “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.” (Read more of the letter here.)
King went on to point out that the use of Tupac’s voice in a diss track against Lamar was particularly egregious. “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,” King wrote.
Billboard reached out to reps for both Drake and the Tupac estate on Thursday (April 24) following the removal of the song, and both declined to comment.
“Taylor Made Freestyle,” the follow-up to Drake’s “Push Ups” diss track from earlier this month, is part of a feud that was seemingly ignited by Lamar’s verse on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That,” which takes aim at both Drake and J. Cole. “Like That” has spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
