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- Fans of Frank Ocean have been starved for new music from the reclusive artist.
- A scammer allegedly capitalized on that, duping his fans into buying AI-generated tracks.
- The incident follows fake song releases from the likes of Drake and Travis Scott.
Frank Ocean fans have been starved for new music from the reclusive artist, who has not put out an official project since 2016's "Blonde." Some of the musician's most obsessive devotees have taken to Discord in search of leaked and unreleased material.
This recently led to a scammer making thousands, peddling so-called leaked Ocean tracks on Discord that were actually generated by AI, according to Motherboard.
In an alleged screenshot of the Discord posted to Reddit, one of the moderators of the server posted an announcement, saying that almost everything sold by the scammer was fake and that at least two songs, "The Line," and "Steer It," were confirmed to be generated by AI.
The scammer, who goes by the username "mourningassasin," told Motherboard that they were able to secure about $9,700, or $13,000 CAD, from selling the fake recordings.
Frank Ocean's label did not immediately respond to Insider for comment, and the scammer could not be reached. Ocean has not commented on the incident.
This incident is indicative of both the advancements in generative AI — particularly how convincing some of these fake songs can sound — and how the technology is disrupting the music industry.
"Heart on My Sleeve," an AI-generated track featuring purported vocals from Drake and The Weeknd, went viral in April. The song garnered 1,423,000 streams in the US over just four days before being pulled, per Billboard. An AI-generated album imitating Travis Scott was also taken offline.
Some artists are open to AI-generated music using their likeness. Last month, Grimes announced that she would split royalties 50/50 on any successful song made with her voice. She even went as far as launching software that facilitates the production of AI-music that harnesses her vocals, Gizmodo reported.
Labels have pressured streaming services like Spotify to monitor their platforms for AI-generated tracks, and Spotify has already taken down tens of thousands of them.
Discord servers have served as a kind of refuge for music-based communities to compile leaked songs from artists. Users have crowdfunded money to buy unreleased songs hacked from rap artists like Lil Uzi Vert, for example, per The Fader. The practice of selling leaked songs is illegal.
Ocean recently made headlines following a tumultuous Coachella set that was delivered nearly an hour late and ended abruptly.