Drake Accuses Universal Music and Spotify of "Artificially Inflating" Kendrick Lamar's Numbers for "Not Like Us" Diss Trac

In a dramatic new development in the ongoing feud between Drake and Kendrick Lamar, the Canadian rapper has filed a legal complaint against Universal Music Group (UMG), alleging that the company orchestrated a scheme using Spotify to artificially inflate the numbers for Kendrick Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us.”

This move is particularly shocking as UMG is the distributor for both artists' music.

In a court filing made on Monday in Manhattan, which was first reported by Billboard, Drake's Frozen Moments LLC accuses UMG of engaging in an illicit "scheme" involving the use of bots, payola, and other tactics to boost the streaming numbers for Lamar's inflammatory song, which takes direct aim at Drake with personal allegations. This track has only fueled the already intense rivalry between the two artists.

The appeal, gotten by Assortment, claims that UMG “engaged in conduct outlined to misleadingly blow up the ubiquity of ‘Not Like Us’… counting by authorizing the tune at radically decreased rates to Spotify and utilizing ‘bots’ to create the wrong impression that the tune was more well known than it was in reality.”

In a reaction a few hours after the news broke, a UMG rep told Assortment: “The proposal that UMG would do anything to weaken any of its craftsmen is hostile and unfaithful. We utilize the most elevated moral hones in our promoting and special campaigns. No sum of thought up and ridiculous legitimate contentions in this pre-action accommodation can veil the reality that fans select the music they need to hear.“

While other gushing administrations are not named in the appeal, it does claim that “UMG shows up to have utilized comparable strategies with other spilling administrations. On data and conviction, UMG paid, or endorsed installments to, Apple Inc. to have its voice-activated advanced right hand ‘Siri’ deliberately mislead clients to ‘Not Like Us.'”

“UMG did not depend on chance, or indeed conventional commerce practices,” the request proceeds. “It instep propelled a campaign to control and immerse the gushing administrations and airwaves.”

Reps for Drake, Lamar, Spotify and UMG either declined or did not instantly react to Variety’s demands for comment.

Drake’s lawyers claim that UMG abused the Racketeer Affected and Degenerate Organizations (RICO) Act, which is frequently utilized in criminal cases against organized wrongdoing (and was conveyed to convict R. Kelly of sexual unfortunate behavior and other violations in 2021). They moreover charge misleading commerce hones and untrue promoting beneath Modern York state law.

As Announcement notes, Monday’s recording is not however a full claim, but a so-called “pre-action” request — a strategy beneath Unused York law that points to secure data some time recently recording a lawsuit.

However, the move is exceptional in a number of ways. Prior this year, Lamar heaped on a arrangement of progressively individual diss tracks against Drake, not as it were charging him of having connections with underaged ladies — which Drake has denied — as well as children not uncovered to the open, and has gone so distant as to address Drake’s child Adonis, his mother and others in his songs.

Drake discharged tunes in reaction, but before long evacuated them from his socials and at that point went quiet. The hamburger calmed down after a man was shot exterior of Drake’s Toronto home in May, but let go up once more with the astonish discharge of Lamar’s modern “GNX” collection on Friday.

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However, he did show up to address the circumstance late Sunday in a Kick stream with have xQc in which he presented himself by saying, “I’m Drake, this is xQc, genuine gushing legend. Me, I do music, in case you don’t know.

“I’m here,” he proceeded. “Full intaglio, intellect, body, and soul, in case you were pondering. You require truths to take me out, fairytales won’t do it,” he included, conceivably implying to the prospective lawful action.

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He made a comparable articulation afterward in the appear, including, “Nothing makes me awkward. I’ve worked as well difficult to be awkward. Nothing fazes me, like I said, it takes as it were truths to overlap me, fairytales don’t work.”

Variety will have more on the circumstance as it creates.

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