Grimes leaves Columbia Records 2023
Grimes has ended his relationship with Columbia Records.
Daouda Leonard, the manager of the alternative pop star, verified the departure to Billboard.
Since 2021, Grimes, whose actual name is Claire Elise Boucher, had been signed to a major label.
The announcement comes days after Grimes granted permission for her vocal to be used on artificial intelligence-generated songs.
The 35-year-old singer weighed in on the topic of AI music and stated that she is totally open to it because it’s “cool to be fused [with] a machine” and that she is fine with her voice being used as long as royalties are divided 50/50 with her.
There was no stated rationale for the split.
In a series of tweets, she declared, “I’ll split 50 percent of the royalties on any successful AI-generated song that utilizes my voice. Same as with any other artist I collaborate with. You are allowed to use my voice without repercussions. I have no label and no legal constraints. (sic)”
Grimes continued, “I think it’s interesting to be fused with a machine, and I like the concept of open-sourcing all art and eliminating copyright… We’re developing a program that should accurately simulate my voice, but we could also upload stems and samples for others to use in training their own.
Her first post was a comment on an article about the song ‘Heart on My Sleeve’ by TikTok user Ghostwriter977, who used artificial intelligence to generate vocals that sounded identical to those of Drake and The Weeknd.
The song reportedly amassed more than 625,000 plays on Spotify and more than 230,000 plays on YouTube.
It is no longer accessible on Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, and YouTube.
The takedown occurred as a result of a request from Universal Music Group executives to the streaming services to prevent any AI from using their platforms to train algorithms and stimulate the production of unauthorized music.
A spokesperson for Universal stated, “The training of generative AI using our artists’ music and the availability of infringing content created with generative AI on DSPs begs the question of which side of history all stakeholders in the music ecosystem wish to be on: the side of artists, fans, and human creative expression, or the side of deep fakes, fraud, and denying artists their due compensation.”
Grimes, who has two children with tech magnate Elon Musk, has long promised to release her two-part album, ‘BOOK 1’.
