About a year and a half ago an independent rapper named AK dropped a music video for an original composition called "Family Tree." The innovative film clip was highlighted by face-changing technology known as "deepfake." This allowed the young emcee to morph into polarizing figures such as Lil Wayne, Eminem, and Snoop Dogg. In fact, he even turned into Kendrick Lamar for a brief moment during his performance in the music video. AK didn't receive much publicity or credit for his trailblazing idea, but when Kendrick Lamar presented the same exact concept to the public (on May 8, 2022) with his music video for "The Heart Part 5," he was showered with praise. Therefore, when AK caught wind of the striking similarities between his project and Kendrick's, he hopped on social media and gave himself a proverbial pat on the back while slightly indicating that his hard work had been copied.

"Kendrick Lamar's new music video is an exact copy of my video from 2020 of my song Family Tree," AK said. "Maybe I'm full of myself of thinking that Kendrick Lamar saw my video and was like, 'Damn that's so good that I want to do it myself,' but I was under Universal [Music Group], he's under Universal. I did that video in 2020 with Universal. Obviously, the song didn't do as good as if Kendrick was to do it, but the concept was so sick and I f***ing don't know but it's the same exact thing! It's a backdrop, it's him in front of it [and] it's one take. And I wanna make it clear, like, he's an icon, I respect Kendrick...This is just very weird bruh...this is just very weird."

AK goes on to state that independent artists, such as himself, often have to deal with copyright issues such as this. While AK is deserving of credit for the creation of his music video for "Family Tree," it is also important to note that Michael Jackson was one of the first musicians on record to utilize a form of face-changing technology with his music video for "Black Or White" back in 1991.

Kendrick Lamar has yet to respond to AK's claims. For more on this developing story, keep it locked.

Source: Instagram