In the battle of Drake vs Kendrick Lamar, AI is playing spoiler

For the past month, an all-out brawl has consumed hip-hop, with some of the genre's top artists trading barbs in rapidly released tracks. The dispute, which began in late March with a perceived dig at Drake by Future and Metro Boomin, has roped in J. Cole, Rick Ross and even the estate of Tupac Shakur.

At issue: Who is the current holder of hip-hop's crown -- Drake or Kendrick Lamar -- with a whole lot of rumors, personal attacks and inside jokes adding fuel to the fire.

Rap battles aren't new, but this time, fans are grappling with a very 2024 question: Which of the diss songs are real?

When a diss track in a high-profile conflict gets released, the splintered rap media ecosystem -- including magazines, blogs, Instagram pages, YouTube channels, podcasts and livestreams -- often erupts immediately. Journalists spread the word, critics dissect every line, and fans rush to crown a winner, round by round. But when a Drake response called "Push Ups" appeared online, fans wondered whether it was made by him or was perhaps the work of generative artificial intelligence.

They had reason to be skeptical. Last year, "Heart on My Sleeve," a song impersonating Drake and the Weeknd, was posted by a musical creator called Ghostwriter, and in many ways served as a harbinger of the impact this technology may have on the industry.

A track like "Heart on My Sleeve" requires a fair amount of musical know-how to produce. The beats and raps are typically generated by a musician, then put through an open-source deepfake filter to transform the vocals into a well-known artist's. It is that last step, imitating another artist's vocals, that has caused the most consternation.

"I don't think any of us want to live in a world where you can just create unauthorized representations of people without their permission," said Alex Jae Mitchell, CEO of Boomy, a generative AI music startup.

So when Drake's "Push Ups" appeared -- the supposed return volley to Lamar's "Like That," which is on Future and Metro Boomin's No. 1 album "We Don't Trust You" -- there were questions about its veracity. "At this point, you have to question everything," said C. Vernon Coleman, the news editor at the hip-hop publication XXL. "You have to listen to the lyrics, listen to the voice, reach out to the proper channels."

Without immediate confirmation from Drake or his representatives, fans traded theories online about the mixing quality of the song, dug for clues from the lyrics and compared it with other Drake tracks. Eventually, a new version was released and the rapper began posting oblique references to it on his Instagram, satisfying most internet sleuths that it was the real deal.

In many ways, a rap beef is fertile ground for AI impersonation. The songs are usually not released through a rapper's record label; they often appear online in early or unfinished forms, and they generally prize insults and barbs over songcraft. No one expects a sterling Drake hook and polished production on a track churned out quickly.

The cycle was repeated April 15, when a Lamar response surfaced online: That one, called "One Shot," was a fake. A Los Angeles rapper ultimately took credit for the dupe, releasing videos showing his methodology. He produced and rapped the track the old-fashioned way, before putting his voice through a Lamar vocal filter.

Drake followed up with "Taylor Made Freestyle" and posted it on his official Instagram, but listeners immediately had questions. The first voice on the track belonged to Tupac Shakur, the long-deceased rapper, dissing Lamar in a suspiciously Drake-like cadence. After those earlier doubts swirled about whether "Push Ups" had been made via deepfake technology, Drake used it to rap in character as Tupac and Snoop Dogg.

Within a week of Drake releasing "Taylor Made Freestyle," the Shakur estate reacted. According to a cease-and-desist letter obtained by Billboard, the estate's lawyer, Howard King, wrote that the song was "a blatant abuse of the legacy of one of the greatest hip-hop artists of all time" and demanded its removal. Last Thursday, Drake took the song off his social media pages.

Rap beef is big business. "Like That" spent two weeks at No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart, and the continuing feud between Lamar and Drake remains the most pressing topic of the day for hip-hop media. Still, the possibility of deepfakes muddying the waters is presenting new challenges for those who cover the back and forth.

"The blogs, they don't do any research," Coleman said. "If they hear there's a Kendrick Lamar diss, they're posting it. They're getting it up ASAP."

Noah Callahan-Bever, a veteran hip-hop journalist and the chief content officer of Complex, said leaks force his team to "spend an inordinate amount of time going down rabbit holes" to find the truth. "And it's tough because we are going head-to-head with, you know, hip-hop Instagram news pages who do not feel the ethical imperative to apply that journalistic rigor."

On Tuesday, Lamar reignited the back-and-forth, adding the six-plus minute "Euphoria" to his YouTube page with no notice. The placement seemed to assure listeners that it was official, and Lamar made his feelings about the technological specter looming over the beef clear. After saying that Drake's imitation would make Tupac roll over in his grave, he rapped, "Am I battling ghosts, or AI?"