
Jermaine Dupri takes shots at “ignorant” Drake
Drake has been at the centre of attention recently. Following his battle with Kendrick Lamar, the Thank Me Later emcee has been under much scrutiny, and after the release of ‘Wah Gwan Delilah’, hip-hop has harshly judged the rapper.
Last month, during the height of his battle with Kendrick Lamar, Drake decided to make a rather unusual diss track that made use of A.I. Entitled ‘Taylor Made Freestyle’, the song heard the voices of 2Pac and Snoop Dogg. However, many received it poorly.
The late 2Pac is a legend in hip-hop and many found it distasteful to use the voice of a deceased icon to make a point. 2Pac’s estate even threatened to sue him. Therefore, Drake eventually removed the track from streaming services to avoid any potential legal repercussions.
One critic who has been highly vocal about Drake is Atlanta singer-songwriter Jermaine Dupri, and during a recent appearance at Atlanta’s United Masters’ SelectCon conference, he spoke about his concern about A.I. and the impact it is already having on music.
Insisting Drake’s use of A.I. was neither clever nor well thought out, Dupri told the audience, “If you’re going to use AI, you’ve got to use it in a smart way because the people that are touching it at this point, they don’t understand some of the things that it can damage, right?”
He then cited ‘Taylor Made Freestyle’ as a poor use of A.I., stating, “If you look at the Drake song where he used Snoop and 2Pac’s voice. I don’t think people listen to that and understand how serious people take 2Pac. I think Snoop understood why he shouldn’t answer to it because it could have gotten really dangerous.”
This is not the first time Dupri has spoken out against A.I. Earlier this year, he also called out 23-year-old LA artist Sy The Rapper for using AI to replicate Kendrick Lamar’s voice on a track aimed at Drake, again labelling it as “dangerous”.