As generative AI tools became ubiquitous and the ease of creating songs full-cloth with a handful of prompts increased, it seemed like only a matter of time before one of the viral sounds broke containment and made its way into mainstream music. And that day may have already come.
The ’80s-inspired “Rubberz” by Fenix Flexin and Purps on the Beat currently sits at No. 66 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 — after peaking last week at No. 58 — and may be entirely AI-generated. Both artists (who actually do exist in real life, unlike those behind other slop hits) have denied the charges, which started before “Rubberz” was even officially released — and Fenix was sharing snippets on social media.
But despite the denials, compounding pieces of evidence — including a thorough demo and explanation by producer Medasin, previous clips from Fenix containing the name of an AI program in the file name, and that same program’s detection tool identifying “Rubberz” as slop — point strongly to the conclusion that “Rubberz” was not made by people.
And yet, “Rubberz” is still charting.
The major labels, for their part, are taking steps to prevent AI-generated songs from doing the same in the future. A consortium of companies, including Believe, BMG, Concord, Dirty Hit, Glassnote Records, HYBE Corp., Mom+Pop Music, Partisan Records, Sony Music, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group, released proposed guidelines just last week around AI and chart inclusion. The framework isn’t exactly hard-hitting (AI usage must be “properly authorised and lawful,” songs must be “substantially human made,” and don’t “raise stream or chart manipulation concerns”), but it’s a start.
But those rules are just concern the charts. What about the Grammys?
The rules for the upcoming 69th Grammy Awards open with a pointed declaration. “Only human creators are eligible to be submitted for consideration for, nominated for, or win a Grammy Award,” they read. “A work that contains no human authorship is not eligible in any categories.” This provision is seemingly phrased to delineated between entirely generated songs and tracks that have AI elements. How a distinction between those two categories is made or what counts as “authorship” is less clear.
When it comes to songs with AI elements, there’s even more ambiguity. For Grammy eligibility, the human authorship must not be minimal and must pertain directly to the craft that the category is considering.
What remains to be seen is how disputed cases will be resolved. The story of “Rubberz” is likely to continue to evolve between now and the first round of Grammys voting in October. The Recording Academy had not replied to Gold Derby’s questions about Fenix and Purps’s eligibility by the time of publication, but there will certainly be more to come as this year’s consideration window closes at the end of the month.
