Rubberz Pt 1: The News – First AI Song on the Hot 100

MARTY MAR

What's good, PLUG RADIO! This is Marty Mar on the News Desk, and I've got the whole crew in the building today. Bahh Zoo is here, and Ain't Tee is here, because this story needs all three of us. We're talking about a song called Rubberz.

BAAH ZOO

Bahh Zoo in the building. And yeah, this one is the reason I keep telling y'all the future showed up early.

AINT 'TEE

Ain't Tee on the Tea Desk, and baby, I've been waiting all week for this one. Go ahead, Marty, give them the facts first, then I'll give them the flavor.

MARTY MAR

Here are the facts. Rubberz is a single from rapper Fenix Flexin and producer Purps on the Beat. It dropped on June fifth of this year. It went viral fast. People were calling it a contender for song of the summer. And it climbed all the way to number fifty-eight on the Billboard Hot 100, and number five on Billboard's Rhythmic Airplay chart.

BAAH ZOO

Number fifty-eight doesn't sound wild until you hear the next part.

MARTY MAR

Right. Because Rubberz is now widely recognized as the first fully AI-generated song to ever appear on the Billboard Hot 100. Not a song with a little AI touch-up. A song that was generated, start to finish, with an AI music platform.

AINT 'TEE

And let's be clear, nobody announced that up front. Fenix was not out here saying, hey y'all, I made this with a computer. It took months of folks digging before the truth came out.

MARTY MAR

That's the timeline. When the song first hit, listeners noticed something was off. Fenix Flexin is known for a West Coast, trap-leaning rap style. Rubberz was a synth-pop record with an eighties-style British accent on the vocal. That's a big swerve.

BAAH ZOO

And the vocal itself had this texture to it. Some people described it as almost too smooth in some spots and kind of brittle in others. We'll break down exactly what that means in the tech part.

MARTY MAR

So questions start flying. Fenix and his team deny it. He says the sound comes from Auto-Tune, reverb, and what he called his fake U K accent. He even posted clips of Pro Tools session files to show it was recorded by real people.

AINT 'TEE

Receipts! Or so he thought.

MARTY MAR

Then in July, producer Medasin posts a breakdown that goes viral. He points to a snippet of the song that Fenix had shared before release, and the file name on that snippet was Sonauto dot M P 3.

BAAH ZOO

And Sonauto is an AI music platform. It rebranded to a new name, Treblo, right before Rubberz came out.

MARTY MAR

In August, Treblo releases a detection tool built to recognize music made with its own model. They run Rubberz through it, and the result comes back very likely Treblo. Treblo's co-founder, Ryan Tremblay, then confirmed the song was generated on their platform, and said it was exciting to see an artist find a sound that resonated with millions.

AINT 'TEE

Exciting for who, though? That's my question.

MARTY MAR

And that same month, Fenix Flexin changes his tune. He admits he used AI. In an Instagram post he said he never said he didn't use AI, and he told people, keep up with the times or get left behind.

BAAH ZOO

That line right there is going to be argued about for years.

MARTY MAR

Now here's why this is bigger than one song. The major labels, Universal Music Group, Sony Music, and Warner Music Group, have proposed a new framework for who gets to be on the charts. Under that proposal, a song would need to be properly authorized and lawful, substantially human-made, and free from streaming or chart manipulation.

AINT 'TEE

Substantially human-made. Write that down, because that phrase is about to start a lot of fights.

MARTY MAR

That's the news. A machine-made song made the Hot 100, the artist denied it, the evidence piled up, he admitted it, and now the whole industry is rewriting the rulebook. Bahh Zoo, when we come back, I want you to tell the people how they actually caught it.

BAAH ZOO

Say less. I've got the whole breakdown, and you don't need to be a producer to follow it.

AINT 'TEE

And then it's my turn. Because the denial, the receipts, the Instagram post, the reactions from the culture? Oh, I have notes.

MARTY MAR

Stay locked in. This is PLUG RADIO. We'll be right back after a few more records.