Drake heads to court to maybe recover some of the money he lost as a result of the Kendrick Lamar feud.
The Canadian rapper’s attorneys filed two legal petitions against his label Universal Music Group, UMG, over Kendrick Lamar’s blistering diss track “Not Like Us.” The song was spawned from the pre-summer beef between the two rappers as they trade diss tracks. However, “Not Like Us” emerged as the diss song with the most damaging lyrics and posted the highest numbers in terms of consumption across DSPs.
Drake is now saying that UMG engaged in a “campaign to manipulate and saturate the streaming services and airwaves” with the song by spending money and using bots to artificially inflate the numbers. In a second round of legal filings, the Toronto rapper admitted that “Not Like Us” caused him economic harm.
“UMG’s choice to saturate the music market with ‘Not Like Us’ comes at the expense of its other artists,” his lawyers argued in their legal filing. “As Drake is Petitioner’s sole owner, and Petitioner owns the copyright to Drake’s entire catalogue, Petitioner suffered economic harm as a result of UMG’s scheme.”
The legal filing also alleges that UMG fired employees who had perceived loyalty to Drake. The OVO rapper’s people are calling UMG and Spotify tactics in the feud a “scheme” against him. Drizzy people also claimed that UMG engaged in conduct that artificially inflated the numbers and popularity of “Not Like Us,” which included licensing the song to Spotify at a drastically reduced rate and using bots to drive up streaming data with false impressions, making the track appears more popular than it is.
UMG is denying the allegations made by Drake and his team. “The suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue,” a rep for the label told Variety. “We employ the highest ethical practices in our marketing and promotional campaigns. No amount of contrived and absurd legal arguments in this pre-action submission can mask the fact that fans choose the music they want to hear.”
In the meantime, Drake’s legal petition against UMG and Spotify has been met with mixed reactions from the hip-hop community. Charlamagne Tha God roasts Drake following news of the filing, saying this is all because he lost a rap battle. “Because you lost a rap battle? I’m just here for the chaos. Let’s Discuss,” Charlamagne said.
Drake appeared on xQc’s Livestream on Sunday night, where he made it clear that he is unbothered and is not “uncomfortable” with how things are playing. That Livestream appearance comes days after Kendrick Lamar released a surprise album, GNX.
