https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH_hok0AtkI

I can't believe we got AI Drake before GTA 6. Is that a meme? Is that funny?

Hey, everyone. A-thony I-tano here, the Internet's busiest music nerd. I hope you're doing well. I feel like a lot of you know that I couldn't possibly give up the chance to talk about two of the largest topics on this channel coming together. And just for further context, this is far from the first time Drake and artificial intelligence have intermingled.

After all, all of those AI vocal modeling tracks that were popping off on platforms like TikTok not too long ago, some of the biggest of them prominently featured AI versions of Drake's voice. There was also that infamous "Taylor Made Freestyle" that Drake himself recorded and dropped in the midst of his beef with Kendrick Lamar, which he lost.

But yeah, on that track, he copied the voices of Tupac Shakur as well as Snoop Dogg, using their likenesses, as it were, to play head games with Dot. Now this latest instance of AI Drake, I will say, is a lot less consequential, but still somehow more hilarious. And it comes in the form of this weird short-form music video visual piece that was recently placed onto Drake's YouTube channel.

Now, it's actually a part of a series of fan-submitted music video propositions, I guess you could say. Through this drakerelated.com/videos page you could basically see all of the different music video ideas and concepts that were submitted, some of which are actually legitimately impressive. And even those that don't seem to have a high budget or a large amount of expertise going into them, at the very least, bring a lot of heart and effort. I mean, this one animation that was submitted features a shot of a Drake DJ that has got to be about one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time.

But look, I know on this channel and on my main channel, we have a bit of a reputation for being critical of Drake, but I think these types of fan submission art contests are actually pretty cool if you manage them well. The issue is, though, some of these submissions clearly make use of AI, and that is especially the case for this very terrible visual we are about to go over right now, which is said to be, "directed by Annie Burke." And the description of the visual says, AI-art based treatment, showcasing Drake in a therapy/group session discussing conflict between him and a girl we assume is his lover, while Party Next Door supports him throughout."

Okay, obviously, for the purposes of this video, I'm not going to play the song "Somebody Loves Me". But we will be taking a look at the visual here just to see what we're cooking with. We have a supremely thick-looking Drake, a very thick Drake over here. Thick beard, thick eyebrows, house, thick everything. Just like a very meaty, beefy-looking Drake. It's like an Eastern Bloc Drake, I would say, maybe.

I love how disorienting this is. We're looking at a motion of walking, of several things happening, but there's a cut every second. Why? What? Why?

Okay, I presume this is the therapist. This is who the therapist is? He's like, "Hey, Drake, come sit down. Come to therapy." Drake's like, "Oh, I'm sitting here. I'm thinking, looking a little less wrinkly, sitting and thinking, being contemplative."

Drake's just swimming in the water now.

What is this, Drake? He looks part clay character, but then also CGI. It's like Moral Orel but Bob the Builder at the same time. I also love how every single shot, Drake seemingly has a different number of tattoos.

Yeah, everybody's at the party now. Party Next Door is there, and I guess that guy is like OVO Chet, whoever the hell that is with sunglasses.

I know this Drake. I've interviewed this Drake.

Okay, yeah. Director: Annie Burke, Producer: this person. What was directed here? And then the whole thing just devolves into a bunch of sexy songs for you logos going on forever. Just for the rest of it, that's it.

Okay, look, I'm sorry. I know this was a part of some cute little contest that the OVO camp is trying to do over here, but this is embarrassing. This is ridiculous. I feel like you don't put this out unless you're lazy and you don't care about your fans. You legit don't care about what your fans see attached to your name if you release this visual to the world because it's hideous, it's ugly, it's insulting.

It's also a spit in the face to the artists who also had their works submitted, who comparatively, due to the drama of the stupid AI bullshit in this now have their videos and their work and their contributions getting less views and less discussion and less engagement because this whole eyesore piece of crap here is stealing all the attention.

And also, while this whole contest thing is for sure adorable, if you wanted to do some promotional visual for "Somebody Loves Me", you could have footed the bill for a legitimately great music video from some up and coming creator who's never had an opportunity like this rather than splitting the attention between a bunch of other different creators, some of which are just making AI slop.

But yeah, beyond this, I just also wanted to quickly touch down on another very interesting and important piece of Drake news right now, and that's the recent release of his Iceman Ep 3 thing, the third installment of this ongoing episodic visual cluster fuck, which he's been using to progressively get fans and more excited for his next album, and also tease song snippets and also build a bit of lore around the album involving these Pinocchio figures chasing him down.

I'm not going to dive into the visuals or the delusions that are represented in the symbolism in the Iceman Ep 3 thing. But what I will say is that the reception around, especially this third installment of Iceman, has not really been panning out in Drake's favor. Some of the biggest streamers reacting to this thing came away from it, either desperately looking for ways to positively spin it or are just looking downright disappointed by how underwhelming and uninteresting it all was.

It sounds like 'Sweeterman'. This is hard on God." - Aden Ross

"The biggest waste of my God." - Kai Cenat

I actually think Kai Cenat had the most apt observation of the whole thing, just stating it clear that this whole coded, symbolic subtext, faux art school crap, Drake is serving up here. This is not what his fans go to him for.

"They're spamming hidden messages, bro. That's dragged out. I'm not going to lie. They're spamming hidden messages that's dragged out to make it look artistic... I can't fake it. I can't fake it. That was ass. That was so ass." - Kai Cenat

And on top of that, not only were a lot of people overwhelmed by the experience of Iceman Ep 3 artistically, but a lot of his most vapid and rabid supporters on Twitter came away unhappy with the lack of a red button push here, or in other words, the drop or divulgence of some significant piece of information that would validate the thousands of man hours they have put in online, defending not only the very poor performance he showed in the beef with Kendrick, but also the terrible ass lawsuit that he is still trying to ram down everyone's throats.

But yes, with the release of Iceman 3, no such button push happened. And the only somewhat positive thing to come out of it is that I guess we are now getting the Drake & Yeat "Dog House" track that was featured in the episode, the full-length version of it, released, which was just about the only moment from Iceman Ep 3 people generally reacted positively really to.

There was one other good thing to come out of Iceman Ep 3, though, and that is some of the delusional ass comments supporting it. One of the funniest of which goes as follows. Also for context, this tweet specifically references a scene in Ep 3 where Drake is seemingly about to get Bang Bro'ed by three Pinocchio dudes who have been chasing him down.

I feel like Drake hates his fan base. I don't think you release this much boring, uninspired slop to your fan base. If you actually cared about the art you were generating and you cared about the it impacted the people who are watching and consuming everything you do. If you did, you would think that you would actually want to release something inspired to the public, something passionate or exciting, driven by something other than just the need to release something to make money.

And this is the thing with the AI-generated slop. Like, already, artists are at a point because of the algorithm and the way that music streaming and content works right now, that everybody is releasing as much stuff as they possibly can as fast as they can to maintain the constant engagement of their followers and of their audience. When you're constantly working at that pace, you're going to start putting out some watered-down stuff.

But now with AI, we're getting that same level of mediocrity, but watered down even further. And now we're clearly seeing a point where Drake's fans seem to care more about him and the music he's releasing than he actually does, as they're sitting here confused as to why the quality seems to be dropping so rapidly.

Yeah, that's it. I'm going to leave it there.

Anthony Fantano, Drake, forever.