Simone Joyner
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Last week, producer Aviel Hirschfield sued Drake, saying that the Canadian rapper stole the hook for ICEMAN’s hit song “Janice STFU” from one of Hirschfield’s demos. Hirschfield presented that original demo in the lawsuit, which he says Drake copied “word-for-word, note-for-note.” Now you can hear that supposed demo and judge the similarities between the two songs yourself.
In a post on X, Hirschfield’s original demo (taken from evidence in the lawsuit) appears to contain the iconic chorus of “Janice STFU” at the 45-second mark.
Some have taken this demo as definitive proof that “Janice STFU” was plagiarized. Others have already flocked to Drake’s side, with some replying to the post, “anyone can create an AI song or random recording and say whatever they want,” or, “This sounds like cap to me. Too many artifacts in the sample. Not enough other valuable ideas."
Hirschfield claimed that Drake’s plagiarism of his demo was responsible for “Janice STFU”’s success. In the complaint, Hirschfield stated that he was inspired by Lykke Li’s “I Follow Rivers” when he recorded the demo in January 2026, which emulates Li’s chorus but switches out the lyrics “I, I follow / I follow you, deep sea, baby” with “Reach me, baby / Call my phone and say you need me, baby.” Hirschfield insisted that he has all the metadata from the original demo, and that he has given this information to Drake’s team.
Drake’s legal team strongly denied Hirschfield’s claim last week, stating, “Drake wrote this song and has no connection or knowledge of this person, full stop,” Drake’s rep said. “[There is] not one iota of truth to these accusations.”
In May 2026, Drake released “Janice STFU” as the fourth track on his album ICEMAN, which was his first multi-week Billboard No. 1 single since his song “In My Feelings” from 2018 and has since accrued over 370 million listens.
