AI Music App's New Detector Points to 'Rubberz' and Tyga Track

Fenix Flexin's 'Rubberz' arrived in June as an unusual entry: a synth-pop track with rap-style lyrics, sitting at No. 58 on the Billboard Hot 100 and accompanied by a video with more than 7 million views. Almost immediately, fans began asking whether the song was generated by artificial intelligence.

The accusations gained momentum when music producer Medasin posted a video claiming he had identified the tool behind the track. According to Medasin, Fenix used Treblo, an AI music app formerly known as Sonauto. He pointed to an Instagram Story showing a file with a 'Sonauto.mp3' suffix, then used Treblo himself to generate a similar-sounding song with '80s synthwave' tags and rapper-lifestyle prompts. The results shared lyrical patterns, including a line about heavy diamond chains and references to champagne, pockets and plastic smiles.

WIRED tried the same approach and found that Treblo consistently produced songs with themes of rings, glass, and night-to-day transitions when asked for rap lyrics with an '80s sound. Medasin said that too many coincidences existed to believe 'Rubberz' was created without Treblo.

Fenix and his credited producer Purps on the Beat have repeatedly denied using AI. After Medasin's video, Fenix posted what he said was the project file for the song, but producers quickly argued the file looked like it came from a stem separator, not an original recording. Fenix later removed the post. He did not answer WIRED's request for comment.

Two days after the first video, Medasin accused Tyga, who shares a label with Fenix, of using Treblo for songs on his new $TARFACE project. A detector under development flagged one of Tyga's tracks as AI. Treblo cofounder Ryan Tremblay said the company had not known about 'Rubberz' until it reached the Hot 100.

On Sunday night, Treblo published a detection tool of its own, designed to identify songs made with its model with little or no modification. Running 'Rubberz' through it produced 'Very likely Treblo,' while a Tyga track from early July came back as 'Likely Treblo.' The company says the false-positive rate is below one in 10,000 and has released the code under an open-source licence.

The episode comes as platforms move to address AI-generated content. LinkedIn has added a button for users to flag AI-lookalike posts, Substack introduced an AI-written newsletter detector, and Tidal has stopped monetizing AI-generated music. In the US Senate, a bipartisan labeling bill has been proposed. Medasin says he is not opposed to AI in music in principle, but he wants artists to be honest about using it, because listeners should be able to decide for themselves.