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The AI ghost haunting Fenix Flexin’s Billboard hit

When Los Angeles rapper Fenix Flexin landed at number 58 on the Billboard Hot 100 with his track “Rubberz,” the celebration was cut short by a wave of skepticism. Listeners and industry critics are questioning whether the synth-pop departure is an artistic pivot or the product of generative AI.

The AI ghost haunting Fenix Flexin’s Billboard hit

The suspicion surrounding “Rubberz” stems from a combination of technical anomalies and baffling creative choices. The track abandons Fenix’s signature West Coast trap sound for an ‘80s-inspired aesthetic, complete with a forced British accent. Musicians and producers, including Charlie Harding of the Switched on Pop podcast, point to brittle hi-hats, cut-off reverb tails, and low-bitrate vocal artifacts as hallmarks of models trained on degraded, unlicensed audio. These technical flaws are compounded by lyrics that critics describe as near-gibberish, featuring a rigid rhyme scheme that lacks the internal complexity expected of an established artist.

Fenix has attempted to quell the rumors, but his live performances have arguably fueled them. During studio appearances, the rapper has been observed lip-syncing or struggling to match the vocal range of the recorded track. While Fenix attributes these discrepancies to heavy vocal processing and AutoTune, experts like Curtiss King and Anthony Fantano argue that such tools cannot account for the radical shifts in accent or the song’s unnatural syncopation. Although Fenix has shared glimpses of Pro Tools session files to bolster his defense, the lack of transparent project data leaves the authenticity of “Rubberz” in a state of persistent doubt.

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