Fenix Flexin’s summer anthem “Rubberz” was plagued by artificial-intelligence allegations almost as soon as it dropped. On its way to the Billboard Hot 100, the song started a comment-box and social-media war over its own provenance, the ethics of AI, and whether anyone cares. (Turns out they do.) People thought the rapper’s distinctively nasal voice had developed an unlikely kinship with Morrissey. The track went viral on Instagram—mostly because, as Pitchfork’s Alphonse Pierre wrote in early June, “it’s ridiculous that an L.A. rapper known for twerk anthems and prescription drug punchlines now suddenly is pretending he grew up getting his heart kicked in on the streets of Manchester.”
Fenix denied the claims and, under mounting scrutiny, stood fast. “No sirrrrrrr, recorded same as all music I do!” he responded to one naysayer. “Only difference is auto-tune reverb and me using my fake uk accent lol.”
Allegations and refutations continued to fly. It seemed as if Fenix—a member of West Coast rap crew Shoreline Mafia—would secure “Rubberz” the song of the summer mantle by virtue of pure, stubborn pride. Two developments have undermined his version of events, however. Last Thursday, the music producer (and self-proclaimed “sound scientist”) Medasin posted a breakdown of the song’s AI-style hallmarks on Instagram. Among a firing squad’s worth of apparent smoking guns was his discovery, in an old Fenix video, of the suffix “Sonauto.mp3” in a version of the track’s filename. Sonauto was Treblo’s company name until a rebrand two days before the release of “Rubberz.” Medasin also used basic prompts to generate his own Treblo creations that bore uncanny similarities to the single.
Fenix denied it all, again. He sent Medasin what appeared to be clips of the song’s creation displaying isolated stems, suggesting he could not have generated the track wholesale. Medasin, whose thesis was already overflowing with preemptive volleys and counterfactuals, batted away the refutation. Readily available stem separators automatically split a complete song into vocals, instruments, bass, and drums, commenters noted. Fenix deleted the clips and went quiet.
As the controversy swirled, Treblo absorbed a surfeit of free publicity, with Fenix Flexin as its figurehead. Perhaps it was surprising, then, that the platform waded in on Sunday night with a new tool titled “Was This Made With Treblo?,” as Wired reports. The AI estimator has a microscopic likelihood of false positives, according to the site. “Rubberz” fares poorly: The tool predicts that the song’s origin is “very likely Treblo.” (It produces similar results for songs from Fenix labelmate Tyga’s new album.) The tool’s open source license is available online, but has not been independently reviewed.
In a statement to Wired, Treblo cofounder Ryan Tremblay backed up the tool’s findings: “Someone appears to have used our model to find a sound that millions of people connected with, and that’s exciting.”
Correction: A previous version of this story listed Fenix as a former member of Shoreline Mafia. It’s been updated to note he’s still part of the group.
