Drake was in court Monday after Universal Music Group removed Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” a song that viciously attacked Drake amid a bitter feud between the two hip-hop superstars, from Spotify and other streaming services. claimed to have falsely increased its popularity.
The petition filed in a New York court by the rapper’s company, Frozen Moments LLC, seeks the preservation and disclosure of information that could serve as evidence in a potential lawsuit against Drake and Lamar’s record label distributor UMG.
In the allegations, which UMG called “offensive and untrue,” the record company “launched a campaign to manipulate and saturate streaming services and airwaves with the song ‘Not Like Us’ in an attempt to make the song go viral with ‘bots.’ We use pay-to-play contracts.” The company and Spotify said they “have had a long-standing, symbiotic business relationship” and claimed that UMG offered Spotify special licensing rates for the song.
The petition also said UMG fired employees who appeared to be loyal to Drake “in an apparent effort to cover up the scheme.”
“The suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine its artists is offensive and untrue. We employ the highest ethical practices in our marketing and promotional campaigns,” Universal Music Group said in a statement. “These preliminary work submissions can obscure the fact that fans are choosing the music they want to hear.”
The hugely popular Lamar single “Not Like Us,” released in May as part of the two artists’ dueling tracks, includes the following lyrics: Cell Block 1.” According to figures listed on Spotify, the piece has been played more than 900 million times.
A Spotify representative declined to immediately comment, but said in a statement about the previous story that the company is “investing heavily in automated and manual reviews to prevent, detect and mitigate the impact of artificial streaming on our platforms.” It said it has put a lot of effort into mitigating the impact of malicious actors on streaming numbers and royalties.
The feud between Drake, a 38-year-old Canadian rapper and singer and five-time Grammy Award winner, and Lamar, a 37-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner who will headline halftime of the next Super Bowl, is one of the biggest in the country. Focusing on two stars representing the recent hip-hop genre.
Although the two collaborated occasionally over a decade ago, Lamar began publicly attacking Drake in 2013. Fighting escalated rapidly earlier this year. The move to court, while not yet a lawsuit, still represents a significant escalation in the feud and involves some of the two’s biggest business partners.
