Viral AI-Generated Song ‘Featuring’ Drake & The Weeknd Up For Grammys Nomination

In April this year, a song by Drake and The Weeknd went viral. However, the duo had not actually collaborated on the tune, which was revealed to have been generated by artificial intelligence to mimic the singers’ sounds.

Universal Music Group (UMG) moved quickly to pull Heart On My Sleeve, first uploaded by the TikTok user @Ghostwriter77, off all streaming platforms. By then, the track had garnered over 600,000 plays on Spotify alone.

Then, in June, the Grammys released updated guidelines for AI-generated tunes. The music awards stated that only human creators were eligible to be considered for the coveted prize, though machine learning tools can be used to assist the process.

In a twist, according to Variety, it appears the creator of the imitation song has submitted the track in the Best Rap Song and Song of the Year categories at this year’s Grammys.

Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr told the New York Times he was expecting to “grapple” with such an issue from the standpoint of the Academy. He confirmed that, in this instance, the tune was eligible for the award as it was written by a human—Ghostwriter77.

For a songwriting category like the Song of the Year, a song will be considered for the nomination so long as a majority of it was written by a human and not an AI chatbot.

As the still-unknown uploader penned Heart On My Sleeve, there’s a possibility it could make the upcoming list of nominees.

[via Gizmodo and Billboard, cover image via Michael Turner| Dreamstime.com and Chbm89| Dreamstime.com]