“Rubberz” by Shoreline Mafia rapper Fenix Flexin has sparked so much dialogue amongst hip-hop circles. He’s a West Coast rapper who channeled his inner Morrissey and made catchy new wave with it for one song.
To call it jarring would be an understatement for fans and non-fans alike. How did he make that voice? Why does it sound like that? While tons of people have claimed online that it’s the work of AI, Flexin and the producers have firmly maintained it was made by themselves. It was just an off-the-cuff freestyle that turned into one of the biggest viral hits of the year.
However, artist/producer Medasin made a video online claiming that he knows exactly how “Rubberz” was made. He broke down how Fenix Flexin kept “Sonauto” in the song’s file name. Sonauto used to be the name of a software called Treblo and rebranded two days before “Rubberz” came out.
Then, Medasin demonstrated how Treblo works and how it processes lyrics for the effect Flexin was going for on “Rubberz”. The producer showed how he’s used such records to make his own bad versions of Eminem records.
Since the video came out, the Shoreline Mafia MC slid in Medasin’s DMs and posted the stem recordings for the song accordingly. However, apparently, there might be some trickery involved there too.
Why This Producer Believes ‘Rubberz’ by Fenix Flexin is Actually AI
In a series of Instagram stories captured by Stereogum, Medasin argued that Flexin was merely using a stem separator.
“Any producer currently knows how these work. He’s taken the Treblo output, used the stem separator that breaks it into four stems —vocals, instruments, bass, drums,” he said of Fenix Flexin. “Underneath that, he has layers of his actual vocals where he has layered himself on top of the Treblo song to try to legitimize it and make it look real. I wish he would just f**king drop this s**t dude and move on and come clean. I have no choice but to get to cooking on another video breaking this down. It’s going to be more embarrassing for him.”
Shortly afterward, Fenix Flexin swiftly deleted the stem recordings that he posted, only fueling the fire to Medasin’s claims further. Meanwhile, Medasin himself seems largely exhausted by the whole affair and just wants to get back to his own music. However, he only feels like the job is done when Flexin admits to what he did.
“These are not legit,” he continued. “I am 100% certain that that’s what he’s doing. I don’t want to be f**king doing this, I want to get back to my life and making music. But this is too important.”
Photo by Johnny Nunez/WireImage
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