Bad Bunny. Photo by VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images
Bad Bunny has his own "heart on my sleeve" situation brewing, and the Puerto Rican superstar isn't happy about it. Like Drake and the Weeknd before him, Bad Bunny is facing down a viral song that uses deepfaked vocals, or AI-trained voice models created to sound like Benito — the song is called "Demo 5 Nostalgia" by FlowGPT, and also contains fake versions of Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber. In Whatsapp messages to a fan group spotted by Remezcla, Bad Bunny voiced his clear displeasure with the song and anyone who enjoys it.
“If you guys like that shitty song that is viral on tiktok," Benito wrote, "get out of this group right now." He went on to say that his new album Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana was made to "get rid of people" who would enjoy AI Bad Bunny tracks like "Demo 5." Those who enjoy the song, he writes, are free to "chu chu chu out," a reference to the song's lyrics. See a screencap of the original messages (which are in Spanish, obviously) below.
Bad Bunny reaccionó a la canción viral en TikTok elaborada con Ai. pic.twitter.com/1BjCh5jp5L
— Oí medio (@oi_medio) November 7, 2023
Bad Bunny's posts are perhaps the clearest rejection of AI-trained songs from an artist of his visibility. Both Drake and the Weeknd were tight-lipped when it came to "heart on my sleeve" by ghostwriter even as the song received tens of millions of streams and TikTok views. UMG soon pulled the track from DSPs, but not before ghostwriter was able to channel the momentum into a whole-ass Grammy campaign and subsequent existential crisis for the awards show.
Bad Bunny is going on a massive tour next year. Do not ask him to play "Demo 5 Nostalgia."
