“If you like that s**tty song that’s viral on TikTok, get out of this group right now”: Bad Bunny rants about AI track using his voice
A song called Nostalgia uses AI-generated Bad Bunny, Justin Bieber and Daddy Yankee vocals.
Credit: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for Coachella
A TikTok song which uses AI generated vocals based on Bad Bunny’s voice has gone viral, and the Puerto Rican singer and rapper is not in the least bit happy about it.
In a fiery rant posted on his WhatsApp channel, Bad Bunny – whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio – writes [translated from Spanish using Google Translate]: “If you like that shitty song that’s viral on TikTok, get out of this group right now.
“You don’t deserve to be my friends and that’s why I made the new album, to get rid of people like that. I don’t want them on the tour either.”
The track in question is titled Nostalgia, and also features AI-generated vocals replicating the voices of Justin Bieber and Daddy Yankee. It was first uploaded by a user named flowgptmusic, although there’s no evidence this person is linked to FlowGPT, a visual chatbot tool comparable to ChatGPT.
AI-generated songs using the vocal likenesses of famous artists are becoming a rising issue. And while some – like Grimes – have endorsed the practice, even encouraging their fans to create songs using their voice, others haven’t taken too kindly to their name being attached to projects they have no involvement in.
Back in April, Heart on My Sleeve, a track using AI-generated Drake and The Weeknd vocals, was released by TikTok user ghostwriter977.
It reached a whopping 13 million views on TikTok alone, before it was eventually banned by Universal Music Group.
Due to its success on the platform, the song was even submitted for Grammy consideration, but the Recording Academy, perhaps inevitably, deemed it ineligible, as it uses illegally obtained vocals.
