Jay Z Wanted AI Singer Tocanna’s Viral Song ‘São Paulo’ Removed from Spotify – Here’s Why
There’s a viral song taking over TikTok right now: the irreverent “São Paulo.” You know, the one that says in Spanish that the singer can’t wait to have a sexy night in the Brazilian hotspot. But did you know that the AI-generated artist Tocanna sings it, and that rapper Jay Z is trying to get it removed from Spotify?
Currently racking up over 210,000 followers on Instagram, 171,600 on TikTok, and 420,100 monthly listeners on Spotify, Tocanna is gaining supporters with its sweet voice and lyrics full of sass. The “Grammy winner,” as she self-describes, has a catalog of eight albums released in less than a year, but one single song is having a viral moment.
Among dozens of provocative tracks, one became the driving force behind the phenomenon: “São Paulo.” The song started as an irreverent recreation of “Empire State of Mind,” the Jay Z and Alicia Keys classic, but quickly took on a life of its own. The hit began in Portuguese and, after going viral, was made in Spanish and English, which only made it bigger.
Instead of New York glamour, Tocanna delivers a chaotic, sexual, and exaggerated rendition, with verses like, “Nothing will stop you from tearing my ass up in the city of São Paulo.” The clash between the familiar melody and the sexually comedic lyrics transformed the track into a cultural phenomenon that circulated at parties, became the soundtrack for TikTok challenges, and fueled countless memes. It even caught the attention of J Balvin, who reacted by laughing when his partner Valentina Ferrer played it for him.
The appeal is simple: it’s funny. People weren’t just listening, they were participating in the joke. The song gained popularity because it struck that sweet spot between recognizable and ridiculous. Everyone knows “Empire State of Mind,” which makes the absurd twist even better. It’s humor that works because it’s unexpected.
But the success annoyed some, including Jay Z, who requested the song be removed from Spotify for unauthorized use of his work. However, the censorship only gave Tocanna more stage time. In a video, the artist responded: “The success of the song bothered people, especially because it went viral in Spanish. And I thought that was beautiful.”
As expected, the controversy only made more people curious about the song, turning a copyright dispute into free promotion. It’s all fake, and that’s the point. Tocanna embodies everything absurd about pop culture and makes it entertaining. Real pop stars release music constantly to stay relevant. They craft personas for social media. They chase algorithms and metrics. Tocanna also does all of this, but the difference is that she doesn’t pretend it’s real. She’s a mirror held up to the music industry, reflecting its own manufactured excess.
Maybe that’s why Tocanna feels so right for this moment. In an era where artists are brands, where virality matters more than artistry, where personas are carefully constructed for maximum engagement, an AI singer doing the same thing isn’t that shocking. She just skips the part where we pretend it’s genuine.
In the end, Tocanna asks the same question many real artists face: where does the joke end and the pop begin? Maybe it’s precisely in this ambiguous space between parody and hit that the AI singer found her formula for success.