If you wondered what Ariana Grande might sound like covering Drake, wonder no longer. Thanks to AI— where covers are now a thing—there’s an uncanny version of “Passionfruit” being done by the pop songstress.
The video comes from creator garytheproducer, on an account that’s got lots of AI cover examples, with this one garnering more than 4.3 million views since going up on TikTok on April 8.
The video goes for about 80 seconds with a recognizable segment of the hit song, which originally appeared on Drake’s 2017 More Life collection.
@themusicexpress I used #ai to see what it would be like if Ariana Grande sang Passionfruit. What do you guys think? #foryou #foryoupage #fyp #ai #music #arianagrande ♬ original sound – garytheproducer
If you wonder what the song might sound like with Ariana Grande and Drake dueting, the TikToker has you covered there as well.
@themusicexpress Ariana Ai singing Passionfruit again but this time with Drake vocals! #ai #foryou #fyp #arianagrande #fypage ♬ original sound – garytheproducer
The solo video inspired many comments, ranging from wondering how it was done to throwing out suggestions for other artists to AI-ify.
“Who is making these and how????” asked one commenter.
“I am,” the creator said. “I’m from the future.”
“Imma need an Ariana AI cover of every song ever,” said another commenter.
“You get it,” said someone in response, noticing a plethora of Ariana Grande covers in the creator’s account.
Several commenters were jonesing for Rihanna to get the same treatment, with one remarking, “Someone do this with Rihanna,” adding, “I’m sick of waiting for that gd album.”
Turns out, that’s entirely possible if you put enough Rihanna (or any other singer) into a machine. A group of Chinese researchers have created something called DiffSVC — publishing an explanation online and even linking to a Git Hub. As they wrote, “Singing voice conversion (SVC) is one promising technique which can enrich the way of human-computer interaction by endowing a computer the ability to produce high-fidelity and expressive singing voice.”
According to The Tab, demystifying this a bit, “A fan simply fed the model authentic Ariana songs from her back catalogue, clips of her singing acapella, and other audio from YouTube until DiffSVC could sing (almost) exactly like Ariana can.”
The article went on to say, “But DiffSVC can replicate literally any human voice. So, obviously, fans’ experimentation hasn’t stopped with Ari. Everyone from Britney Spears to Dua Lipa – and Michael Jackson posthumously – has now been fed into DiffSVC, and other software like it, to perform other artists’ music and entertain us on TikTok and Twitter.”
And indeed, there’s a Rihanna “version” of Beyonce’s “Cuff It” out there.
But this could prove legally tricky. As an Insider article noted, AI cover creators could creators of AI covers could “face legal action should they not obtain the correct permissions to use the underlying recording,” as well as what’s called a “passing-off” claim for attempted to pass off a fake Rihanna recording as a real one.
Commenters to this video, though probably not legal experts, seemed to know what’s up. As one person observed, “I think we are witnessing something that is going to be extremely illegal in the future lol.”
This weekend, a viral AI song that mashed up AI Metro Boomin and AI the Weeknd and AI Drake appeared on Twitter. Unlike an automated Drake and Kanye West performing “WAP,” the original song built on ideas by three very real rap titans was surprisingly great.
The Daily Dot has reached out to the creator via TikTok comment.