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Ice Cube threatens to sue anyone who uses ‘demonic’ AI to recreate his voice

‘Somebody can’t take your original voice and manipulate it without having to pay,’ rapper said

Peony Hirwani
Monday 22 May 2023 11:54 BST
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Ice Cube has threatened to sue anyone who tries to use artificial intelligence (AI) to recreate his voice.

The 53-year-old rapper, whose real name is O’Shea Jackson Sr, weighed in on a debate about people using AI to recreate fake tracks and artist voices.

During an appearance on the Full Send podcast, Cube made his stance clear.

“I don’t wanna hear an AI Drake song,” he said, referring to the AI-generated Drake songs that appeared on YouTube and TikTok last month. “Yeah, I don’t wanna hear that bull****. He should sue whoever made it.”

Podcast host Kyle Forgeard then asked Ice Cube what he would do if he was in a similar situation.

“I’mma sue the muthaf***er who made it and the people and the platform who play it,” he answered. “It’s like a sample, you know what I mean? Somebody can’t take your original voice and manipulate it without having to pay.

“I think AI is demonic [and] I think AI is going to get a backlash from organic people.”

In recent months, several artists including Drake, The Weeknd, and Frank Ocean have been affected by AI-generated tracks.

(BIG3/Getty Images)

Last month, two new AI-generated songs replicating Drake’s voice appeared on social media a few days after he hit out at a cover of him rapping to Ice Spice’s “Munch”, which is believed to have been created by AI.

In the same month, another AI-generated Drake track titled “Heart on My Sleeve,” featuring The Weeknd appeared on all streaming platforms.

The song was reportedly created by a user called Ghostwriter977 and received more than 275,000 plays on YouTube and was played more than 600k times on Spotify before it was taken down.

Earlier this month, a scammer also managed to trick listeners and sell multiple AI-generated Frank Ocean tracks for thousands of dollars.

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