Photo Credit: broke records
The mysterious and fast-surging EDM track “I Run” has been the biggest story of the past week — with a sudden removal from DSPs and a subsequent return. Here’s a rundown of exactly what happened with dance music’s most viral AI-generated track… to date.
“I Run” was an overnight viral sensation online — even before it hit streaming services. The EDM track by mysterious newcomer HAVEN racked up millions of plays on TikTok after a teaser posted early last month. Then the song hit streaming platforms, and that’s when things went off the rails.
Who is HAVEN.?
HAVEN is a new project from British producers Harrison Walker and Jacob Donaghue, the latter of whom also makes music under the name Waypoint. “I Run” was written and performed by Harrison Walker initially.
The artist says he used his own voice to record the vocals, and then ran it through layers of processing and filtering to turn it into the female-sounding voice heard in the track. However, that filtering also included the use of the controversial genAI platform Suno—and that’s what complicates things.
You Mean That’s Not Jorja Smith?
The “uncredited female vocalist” sounded remarkably similar to British R&B singer-songwriter Jorja Smith. So much so, in fact, that multiple A&Rs at major and indie labels alike were taking a closer look at the producers as the track awaited an official release.
“‘I Run’ unites two London labels: Isekai Records, the UK indie powerhouse led by Ewan Jenkins and Jack Managan, and Against All Odds, Dean Stalham’s dance imprint,” according to HitsDailyDouble. “The collaboration operates under a joint venture with Broke Records, overseen by Andre Benz and Brandon De Oliveira, and Create Music Group co-founders Jonathan Strauss and Alex Williams. […] The release marks another win for the Isekai/broke partnership following last year’s breakout success with NDotz’s ‘Embrace It.’”
But no Jorja Smith.
The artist even took to social media to confirm the voice isn’t hers. HAVEN even commented on it in a now-deleted social media post. The producer was openly “embracing that it does sound like her,” even though the singer confirmed she was not involved.
That’s when the questions started swirling around whether the vocals were an unauthorized AI “deepfake” of Smith’s voice. HAVEN’s confirmed use of genAI platform Suno seemed to lend further credence to that theory.
Meanwhile, the song was rapidly amassing listenership. It soared to #11 on the U.S. Spotify chart and #25 on Spotify globally. Videos using the song continued going viral on TikTok and Instagram, including one in which rapper Offset had apparently played the song during a Boiler Room set, which later turned out to be falsified.
The Battle Begins — Teardowns, Takedown Notices, and Alleged Impersonation
And then, as quickly as it appeared, “I Run” was taken down from streaming services, including Spotify and Apple Music. That was due, in part, to numerous takedown notices from The Orchard, the label to which Jorja Smith is signed, as well as the RIAA and IFPI. The takedown notices alleged various issues with the track, including the “misrepresentation” of another artist, as well as copyright infringement.
As a result, the song has also been withheld from the Billboard charts, including the Hot 100, on which it had been predicted to debut this week before the controversy. Billboard points out that it “reserves the right to withhold or remove titles from appearing on the charts that are known to be involved in active legal disputes related to copyright infringement that may extend to the deletion of such content on digital service providers.”
Billboard also reports that Broke Records says they filed “dozens of counter-notices,” asserting HAVEN’s ownership of the song, and noted that no lawsuit has been filed against the label to date in association with the song.
Walker and Donaghue of HAVEN maintain that they wrote and produced the song in ProTools, and shared screenshots and videos of the ProTools files and stems to support their claims. However, their admission that “AI-assisted vocal processing” was used to “transform solely [Walker’s] voice” seems to be at the root of the issue.
Suno prompts shared with the press included, among other requests, “soulful vocal samples” to achieve the voice they used in the track. Suno does not allow users to request specific artist or song names in prompts. However, the company is currently in the middle of a blockbuster lawsuit with the Big Three major labels over allegations of widespread copyright infringement of sound recordings used during the AI model training process.
Since Jorja Smith is an artist signed to The Orchard, which is a Sony Music-owned distributor, it’s entirely possible that her music and voice were used in Suno’s training. So, is Suno to blame here? Many critics certainly think so, although attorneys for AI companies say otherwise.
Speaking with Billboard, Theresa Weisenberger, a lawyer and co-lead at BakerHostetler’s AI practice, added that voices are only protected by publicity rights, which vary by state. These rights have historically mostly been limited to commercial contexts, such as misleading endorsements. But the AI boom has led to lawmakers in Tennessee passing the ELVIS Act, which drastically expands the right to stop voice and likeness cloning in a broader context. On the federal level, lawmakers are pushing to pass the NO FAKES Act.
Back to HAVEN., the artists’ labels started re-uploading “I Run” over and over in an effort to fight the takedown requests. This is actually allowed, according to Weisenberger, as long as a counter-notice was filed and a lawsuit was not. But that turned into a whack-a-mole situation for both sides, and ultimately, “I Run” was pulled from the charts, anyway.
“HAVEN., an independent producer-songwriter who created a global breakout hit on his own, is the one being fully de-platformed through a sophisticated campaign by a major label,” claimed Broke Records in a statement. “It is difficult to imagine this recording, if released by a major label, being treated in the same way as HAVEN.”
Enter Kaitlin Aragon
Now, HAVEN has released a re-recording of the song featuring the vocals of real human singer Kaitlin Aragon, who confirmed the news on TikTok. Aragon was discovered by the team after posting a TikTok video that covered the track; fans speculated that she was actually the original singer, but this has since been disproven.
The new version sounds pretty similar to the original, and the team obviously hopes they can catch lightning in a bottle with the song a second time.
Whether that will pan out remains to be seen. At this point, the controversy surrounding the song seems to have brought it more attention than the new version would have on its own, but it’s difficult to gauge how fans will react to one version of a song over another.
