Source: Carmen Mandato / Getty
Drake may be willing to go to war with the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Rick Ross and whoever else may have a problem with him, but he doesn’t want any smoke with Tupac Shakur’s estate.
Less than a week after releasing his “Taylor Made Freestyle” which featured an AI version of the late-great Makaveli, Tupac Shakur’s estate threatened Drizzy with a lawsuit for using Pac’s “vocals” on his Kendrick Lamar diss record. They gave him 24 hours to take the song down or face the legal consequences. Sho’nuff, the song has now been removed from Drizzy’s Instagram page with no explanation (not that one was needed).
Last weekend, Drake shocked the Hip-Hop world when he released the aforementioned song, which not only featured an AI generated verse from Tupac, but also Snoop Dogg who’s alive and well. With many fans bemoaning the artificially created verse from one of the biggest Hip-Hop icons of all-time, others praised Drake for the surprise move and crowned him the GOAT for taking rap battles into the digital age.
Needless to say, Snoop Dogg was shocked that he somehow ended up on a new record without his knowledge. Tupac Shakur’s estate wasn’t amused at all and slapped Drake with a cease-and-desist letter, which threatened him with a lawsuit if he didn’t take the song down from his page.
According to USA Today, the message was received and the song is now as ghost as the spirit of the man who was featured on it.
Per USA Today:
In a letter obtained by USA TODAY Wednesday, the estate of Tupac and his mother, Afeni Shakur, says it’s “deeply dismayed and disappointed by your unauthorized use of Tupac’s voice and personality in the ‘Taylor Made (Freestyle)’ record.”
The letter continues, “We demand that you immediately cease and desist from any further publication and exploitation of the Record, and that you immediately take ALL NECESSARY steps to remove it from all platforms where it is publicly available.”
The release is “a flagrant violation of Tupac’s publicity and the Estate’s legal rights. … The Estate would never have given its approval for this use,” the letter states. “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.”
And with that, the King of the North had to bow down to the rap legend’s representatives as he had no desire to take this battle to the courts.
Meanwhile, the Hip-Hop world continues to await a response from Kendrick Lamar. His silence has fans wondering if he’ll even continue to participate in the battle that he set off with his verse on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That” just last month.
We’re starting to lose faith that he will, but to each his own.
What do y’all think of this situation? Did y’all even like the song? Let us know in the comments section below.