This song by Drake and The Weeknd is a hit on social media, but it’s totally fake | show

An artificial intelligence-generated track featuring the ‘cloned’ voices of Drake and The Weeknd is going viral on social media. In the number Heart on my sleeve the Canadian artists rap and sing about singer/actress Selena Gomez. Never before has a fake song sounded so realistic, but there seems to be a catch.

The fake song is a hit on social media – with 8.3 million views on TikTok, many shares on Twitter and hundreds of thousands of listens on YouTube and Spotify – and that’s because it sounds so realistic. A catchy groovesolid beat and the lyrics are about Selena Gomez, who The Weeknd dated between 2015 and 2017. Experts agree that it could very well be a song by the two stars, who are both among the best-selling artists worldwide.

Drake (real name: Aubrey Drake Graham) and The Weeknd (Abel Makkonen Tesfaye), who also worked together in the past, have nothing to do with it at all. The song is not a leak from a still secret collaboration, it was created entirely using AI – artificial intelligence – or purely by smart computers.

But who is behind it Heart on my sleeve? Because computers are now very smart – not for nothing that tech greats want that development takes a step back – AI can’t make such a song completely on its own. TMZ and Daily Mail cite Mitchell Cohen of tech company AppSumo who researched the origin of the song. He concludes that it all seems to have started with a TikTok account called ghostwriter977.

And that’s where the catch comes in, because this “ghost writer’s” account claims to have the full number at the link in his bio, but when you click on it, it takes you to a somewhat strange site that asks for your phone number. Not exactly something to trust, says Cohen. That site is back in the hands of a start-up called Laylo, which helps artists and ‘content creators’ inform their fans about new material. Cohen therefore suspects that it is a ‘genius marketing trick’ to attract new users/customers to that start-up.

Music on demand from favorite artists

Anyway, the fake Drake and The Weeknd clone are now conquering the world with their song. “AI music is here,” Mckay Wrigley, an artificial intelligence developer, writes on Twitter. “This is the first example of AI-generated music that really overwhelms me. This guy ‘ghostwriter977′ on TikTok made a Drake x The Weeknd track that’s actually insanely good?’ He expects that you will soon be able to make unlimited music ‘on demand’ with AI from your favorite artists.

TMZ expects record labels to view the whole development of ‘robot music’ with dismay, and what impact it will have on the music industry. Drake and The Weeknd have not yet commented on the use of their simulated voices.


Also listen to the AD Media Podcast below or subscribe via Spotify or itunes. Find all our podcasts at ad.nl/podcasts.


Watch our Show & Entertainment videos below:

ttn-42