'You can smell the wires': Why Fenix Flexin's 'Rubberz' is facing AI accusations

Can fans and artists tell when music was AI-generated? If Fenix Flexin's 'Rubberz' is anything to go by, the answer is a definitive yes. In a season devoid of hits, it’s been christened by some as the song of the summer. Fenix Flexin’s 'Rubberz' combines looping synth beats that recall, somehow, both the neon-lit Miami strip of the 1980s and a Men At Work track with lyrics that swing from bragging about “pocket’s getting thicker” to unrequited love and lost friends. “I can’t sleep through the night Still seein’ your face in the glass Why do you call when you’re short on cash?” Oozing Polaroid-filtered warmth and an inscrutable catchiness, the track has climbed to number 58 on the Billboard Hot 100 and logged more than 7.5 million views on YouTube. It also sounds nothing like Fenix Flexin’s previous work, from the token lyrics all the way down to the smoothed-out vocals. Since 'Rubberz' was released in early June, many online have latched onto its uncanny cadences and distance from trap-focused Fenix Flexin’s oeuvre to suggest that it was mostly, if not totally, AI-generated. They may have been onto something. The criticism reached a fever pitch this week, after the creators of a generative AI music app called Treblo – the very same that the LA-based rapper was accused of using to make “Rubberz” – flagged it for likely being generated by AI. Where Rubberz meets the road For months, artists, producers and netizens of all stripes have accused Fenix Flexin of using AI to make his breakthrough, 80s-inspired track. Hip-hop artist and producer Curtiss King spent 30 minutes dissecting the track in a YouTube video. “You can smell the wires on it,” he said. “The drum reverb is full of unnatural digital artifacting reminiscent of a 64kbps MP3 downloaded off of Napster. Because most generative AI companies have trained their model on low-quality MP3s of unlicensed copyrighted material, we hear audibly degraded instrumentation,” songwriter Charlie Harding later told The Verge, one of the first to cover the controversy. Fenix Flexin – as well as his labelmate Tyga, who has also been accused of using AI to make music – has done little to dispel the rumours. In social media posts, he claimed he produced it using Pro Tools, auto-tune and a British accent he says he uses “half the day.” But the noise hasn’t settled. If anything, it has been amplified by fellow creators disgusted by the very thought of AI being used to shortcut the process. Last weekend, DJ and producer Medasin later posted a viral reel both excoriating the rapper and showing how simple prompts on Treblo (formerly Sonauto) could produce a nearly identical song. At the heart of the matter is a bigger question: Will it matter if he did? AI slop in the age of corporate indifference For as much as artists, consumers and most sentient human beings have railed against those who use AI to undercut the creative process, it keeps happening. Last year, an AI-generated music persona topped the US Billboard charts. Just a few months ago, ‘actor’ Tilly Norwood – or rather those who control it – released its first single. The common thread is that no one seems to like this stuff, let alone want it. This year, a study by Luminate revealed that consumers – especially Gen Z and Gen Alpha – are increasingly uncomfortable with AI in music creation. It found that overall interest dropped from -13 per cent to -20 per cent in the span of half a year in 2025. “People are more likely to feel uncomfortable than to feel comfortable with AI use,” says Audrey Schomer, a Luminate media analyst and research editor who authored the report. The figures match those involving AI in general. Nearly half of all US citizens said they view AI negatively, according to a recent survey conducted by NBC News. This disdain for a technology that’s often seen as cheating, or at least disingenuous, in the creative fields is beginning to have real-world ramifications. In a sign of a possible inflection point, a court in Munich ruled earlier this week that AI music app Suno violated copyright laws and will be directed to pay a to-be-determined amount in fines to artists. All of this underscores the noise around Fenix Flexin. The more artists are involved in a cheapened version of creativity, a mass production of low-calorie content to make money quickly, the less tolerance audiences seem to have for it.