The AI-generated song mimicking Drake and The Weeknd's voices was submitted for Grammys
The AI-generated song using replications of Drake and The Weeknd's voices has been submitted for Grammy Awards consideration.
However, neither artist had anything to do with the track.
Released in April by the mysterious Ghostwriter, "Heart on My Sleeve" went viral. But the song was quickly pulled from major streaming services including Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal at the request of Universal Music Group, the parent company of The Weeknd and Drake’s label, Republic Records.
Though the song returned online via unofficial third parties, its commercial viability could be a sticking point for its Grammy eligibility.
In June, the Recording Academy, the organization behind the Grammys, announced new AI-related rules that include the mandate that a song have "generation distribution" and that the recording be "available nationwide via brick-and-mortar stores, third-party online retailers and/or streaming services."
However, the gray area gets darker.
Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason jr. explained to The Hollywood Reporter following the announcement of the new rules that "human creators" of AI-generated songs – such as Ghostwriter − would be eligible.
"We will continue to honor humans and their participation or their portion of a creation, knowing full well that there could be AI parts," Mason told the outlet.
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Mason continued, "For example, if you're a human and you wrote the lyric and you did the track and the AI sings it, we're not going to disqualify it. We're not going to say it's ineligible because there's AI in it. We're going to say, you can win a Grammy for the human portion of the track. Vice versa, if an AI writes the song and an artist says, 'I don't want to write, I'm going to sing this song,' AI is not eligible for her Grammy for the music or the lyrics, but the human that performed it is eligible."
USA TODAY has reached out to the Recording Academy for further comment.
The New York Times confirmed with Ghostwriter's representative that "Heart on My Sleeve" was submitted in the best rap song and song of the year categories − both of which are awarded to the songwriter, not the performer, of a track.
Ghostwriter penned original lyrics to the song and then used facsimiles of Drake and The Weeknd's vocals to sing lines such as, "Talking to a diva, yeah, she on my nеrves/she think that I need her, kick hеr to the curb" and "Got these girls on my neck/got these girls on my check/like Selena baby, you’re my cheating baby."
This week, Ghostwriter released a new song, "Whiplash," using AI vocal filters to mimic the voices of rappers Travis Scott and 21 Savage.
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