\n<\/p>\n
There is no<\/span> such thing as a universal \u201csong of the summer<\/a>\u201d anymore, but if you\u2019re into rap music, Fenix Flexin\u2019s \u201cRubberz\u201d is a pretty strong contender.<\/p>\n Officially released in June, it currently sits at No. 58 in the Billboard Hot 100<\/a> and has a music video with 7 million views<\/a>. Lyrically, it\u2019s got everything you\u2019d want: boasts about cash and jewelry, and bars that work as a double entendre for braggadocio and depression.<\/p>\n But there are two interesting twists to \u201cRubberz.\u201d First, it isn\u2019t a rap song at all<\/a>; it\u2019s a synth-pop tune that would be at home in a moody \u201980s playlist. Also, since it dropped, it\u2019s been the focus of accusations that it was completely or partially AI-generated<\/a>.<\/p>\n The argument reached a peak this weekend after an independent music producer claimed he\u2019d figured out not only how Fenix had made \u201cRubberz\u201d but that the rapper\u2019s labelmate, Tyga, also seems to have used a little-known generative AI music app to create some \u201980s-themed tunes of his own.<\/p>\n And now, the creators of that same AI music app have effectively snitched on both: The service\u2019s new built-in detector is now flagging the songs made by both Fenix and Tyga as likely AI-generated.<\/p>\n This may finally settle the argument fans have been having all summer. It won\u2019t settle the one they\u2019re about to start.<\/p>\n People were suspicious of Fenix from the beginning; \u201cRubberz\u201d is not only an unusual genre shift for the artist, it also doesn\u2019t sound like his voice in the song.<\/p>\n Fenix Flexin grew up in East Hollywood, and he sounds like it<\/a>, and when he debuted as part of the group Shoreline Mafia in the late 2010s, you could always recognize which bars were his because of his somewhat nasally, congested<\/a> voice. The voice on his June 5 release of \u201cRubberz,\u201d however, is completely unrecognizable. It\u2019s a lot brighter and crisper, and the accent sounds closer to a very chipper Morrissey.<\/p>\n Both he and the credited producer, Purps on the Beat, have denied using AI at every turn. Fenix told Channel 5<\/a> that he \u201cfreestyled\u201d the lyrics, and in the comments of an On the Radar<\/em> performance, he replied to people<\/a> accusing him of using AI: “No sirrrrrrr, recorded same as all music I do! Only difference is auto-tune reverb and me using my fake uk accent lol.”<\/p>\n Not everyone bought his explanation, but there was no proof otherwise. As the summer continued, music media debated whether \u201cRubberz\u201d had been AI-generated. But none of the well-known AI music detectors flagged it, Fenix denied it, and the song continued to rack up plays. Fans had no choice but to get comfortable with the question being unresolved.<\/p>\n Then, things shifted suddenly. On Thursday, a music producer named Medasin posted a video<\/a> claiming he\u2019d figured out how Fenix used AI to make the track.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t Suno, or Udio, the two most prominent generative AI tools for making music. Instead, Medasin says, Flexin had used a lesser-known app called Treblo<\/a>. Medasin breaks down his accusation methodically: First, he points out that the app used to be called Sonauto<\/a> until two days before \u201cRubberz\u201d was released. And then he shows a screen cap of one of Fenix\u2019s old Instagram Stories<\/a> teasing his new \u201980s sound. A freeze-frame and zoom reveals that a filename being shown on screen has the suffix \u201cSonauto.mp3.\u201d<\/p>\n But the most compelling accusation comes when Medasin shows how he was able to use Treblo to create a very similar track. By using tags like \u201c80s synthwave\u201d and prompting the app to write lyrics about a \u201crapper lifestyle,\u201d Medasin got a similar-sounding song. The lyrics even bear more than a passing resemblance to \u201cRubberz.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\nTune Up<\/h2>\n