But it turns out, “Not a Game” isn’t exactly a brand-new song. The Verge found that the track is composed of multiple preexisting elements, with the primary new addition being the Drake voice.
The fakers took the vocals from this a cappella rap posted to Looperman, a site that hosts audio loops, samples, and sounds that musicians can repurpose to create songs. The track is available to be freely used for noncommercial purposes, and it’s popped up in dozens of SoundCloud tracks since it was first posted in 2019. Artists are supposed to credit the rap to its creator, Sean Pharo.
The creators of “Not a Game” reworked Pharo’s vocals with the AI-generated “voice” of Drake, then layered that over a modified version of a beat by the artist Cedes, which is for sale on the beat marketplace BeatStars. Suddenly, two components that hadn’t been a hit before — the beat and the original rap — were going viral thanks to Drake. Pharo and Cedes did not respond to requests for comment.
This relatively low-effort creation shows just how powerful the ability to clone a musician’s voice is — and just how easy it is for creators to assemble a new track from a major artist. “Not a Game” is still available on SoundCloud and is also back on YouTube after getting reuploaded. SoundCloud, YouTube, and Drake’s label, Universal Music Group, didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.
Last week, the AI Drake song “Heart on My Sleeve” — somewhat suspiciously — went viral after getting posted to the relatively new TikTok account @ghostwriter977. While UMG responded by issuing copyright takedowns, Drake remained silent despite speaking out about an AI cover of him performing an Ice Spice track. This sparked questions about whether this may have been some sort of publicity stunt by Drake and UMG or if the promotional group linked to Ghostwriter’s account, Laylo, was somehow involved. Laylo has since denied these claims.
