Sheryl Crow called Drake “hateful” for using an AI-generated version of Tupac Shakur’s voice in his Kendrick Lamar diss “Taylor Made Freestyle.”
“You cannot bring people back from the dead and believe that they would stand for that,” she told BBC in a new interview.
“I’m sure Drake thought, ‘Yeah, I shouldn’t do it, but I’ll say sorry later’. But it’s already done, and people will find it even if he takes it down,” the “Soak Up the Sun” singer, 62, added.
“It’s hateful. It is antithetical to the life force that exists in all of us.”
Amid Drake’s highly publicized beef with Lamar, the “Hotline Bling” rapper released “Taylor Made Freestyle,” which included AI-generated voices of Shakur, who was fatally shot in September 1996, and Snoop Dogg.
Throughout the song, Drake — born Aubrey Graham — rapped using the voices as he talked down on Lamar, who has called both West Coasts rappers his inspirations.
“Nephew, what the f–k you really ’bout to do? / We passed you the torch at the House of Blues / And now you gotta do some dirty work, you know how to move, right? Right?” Drake said using Snoop’s voice.
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Prominent entertainment lawyer Howard E. King, who represents the Shakur estate, sent a cease and desist letter to the “One Dance” emcee, demanding that he immediately remove the song from streaming services.
In the letter, King called the song “a flagrant violation of Tupac’s publicity and the Estate’s legal right” and “a blatant abuse of the legacy of one of the greatest hip-hop artists of all time.”
“The Estate would never have given its approval for this use. The unauthorized, equally dismaying use of Tupac’s voice against Kendrick Lamar, a good friend to the Estate who has given nothing but respect to Tupac and his legacy publicly and privately, compounds the insult,” he added.
Drake, 37, subsequently removed the song and later addressed the controversy in another diss track to Lamar, 37, blaming him for the late rapper’s estate seeking legal action.
In “Family Matters,” the Toronto native rapped, “A cease-and-desist is for hoes, can’t listen to lies that come out of your mouth / You called the Tupac estate and begged ’em to sue me and get that s–t down.”
In turn, Lamar spoke about Drake’s “disrespect” towards the deceased “California Love” rapper on his latest No. 1 hit, “Not Like Us.”
“You think the Bay gon’ let you disrespect Pac, n–a? / I think that Oakland show gon’ be your last stop, n–a,” he rapped.
