A song reportedly featuring AI-generated vocals of Donald Trump rapping about his latest arrest has reached second place on the iTunes rap chart and number 20 on the overall US iTunes chart.
The track, called First Day Out, takes aim at the former US president’s political opponents, including the Clintons and the “radical left”, and promises to finish the wall between Mexico and the US and to “stop the New World Order.”
The deepfake hit, which uses the moniker “Trump the Don”, also claims that if he does go to prison, he will instead spend his time there “eating steak with the Secret Service, chilling”.
The news comes after Trump recently made history after becoming the first former American president to have a mugshot taken after his arrest on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election result
Hi-Rez The Rapper, the Florida-based producer and rapper behind the track, has already garnered 2.47 million YouTube subscribers with his brand of political, comedy-fuelled rap music.
First Day Out has already racked up roughly three million views on various streaming platforms including YouTube and Spotify.
The song also addresses the potential 2024 presidential candidate’s viral mugshot, which has already been used to sell pro-Trump merchandise, saying, “My mugshot is worth a billi / Sold some merch and made a milli.”
The former president has yet to comment on the video, however, his eldest son Donald Trump JR said it “was playing well” and “people were getting it”.
The song has also garnered praise from some quarters of the American right, with popular pundit Candace Owens calling it “absolutely genius”.
The Trump imitation comes as AI-generated music is becoming increasingly hard to ignore within the rap and hip-hop world.
Donald Trump released a "First Day Out" rap song HAHAH! pic.twitter.com/yW6bgwodX6
— Hi-Rez The Rapper (@HiRezTheRapper) August 25, 2023
An AI-generated track entitled Heart on My Sleeve, featuring vocals from popular musicians Drake and The Weeknd, has racked up 15 million views on TikTok, as well as 600,000 streams on Spotify and 275,000 views on YouTube in April of this year, before it then was removed over copyright concerns.
However, we could be seeing AI-generated music appear in the mainstream, legally.
Last month, The Financial Times reported that Google and Universal Music, which controls roughly a third of the music market, are working on a deal that would allow the AI-generated voices of artists to be licensed legally for songs by third parties.
AI-generated music has received mixed responses, both positive and negative, from artists across the musical spectrum.
Bestselling artist Grimes has admitted there is “some good stuff” in an interview with Wired, while rapper and actor Ice Cube has termed such deepfake tracks “demonic”.
Trump, much like current US president Joe Biden and former president Barack Obama, is one of the most commonly deepfaked voices worldwide, with hundreds available on YouTube already.
Multiple tutorials are now available online on how to use tools such as the GitHub project “vits svc” to create your own AI-generated vocals for use in self-produced rap tracks.
Despite the majority of these currently available AI-based deepfakes being illegal due to copyright law in most countries, many entrepreneurs within the music industry are now looking to release legal tools that will allow users to create their own celebrity deepfake tracks.
UK music producer DJ Fresh, who is known for 2014 hit Hot Right Now featuring Rita Ora, has started a new AI voice firm called Voice Swap.
The firm’s recently released tool allows users to input their audio and transform it into that of a legally licensed singer.
The platform offers a “fair deal” of a “80/20 licensing split” for anyone who wants to release music using a singer’s AI voice from its database.
The Evening Standard has contacted Hi-Rez The Rapper to confirm reports the track is in fact AI-generated, and not just an extremely convincing impression.
