Drake accuses Spotify, UMG of artificially inflating streams of Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” in court filing
Rapper Drake’s company, Frozen Moments, filed a petition in a New York court on Monday accusing streaming service Spotify and Universal Music Group of conspiring to inflate streams of Kendrick Lamar’s hit song “Not Like Us.”
The results of “Not Like Us” Lamar and Drake’s weeks-long beefbroke the record billboard rap chartsIt stayed at the top of the list all summer long. The filing, which describes Frozen Moments as “an entity wholly owned by Drake,” alleges that UMG “engaged in a campaign to manipulate and saturate streaming services and television broadcasts” with “Not Like Us” through bots and pay-to-play deals. .
The document said the song — which currently has more than 900 million streams on Spotify, according to Spotify — was licensed to Spotify at a 30% discount in exchange for an increase in user recommendations. The petition also accuses UMG of using bots to boost playback of “Not Like Us,” paying radio promoters to increase playback, and even paying tech giant Apple to have its voice assistant, Siri, mislead users into listening to Lamar’s hit song.
A spokesman for Universal Music Group called the accusations “offensive and untrue.”
“We apply the highest ethical standards in our marketing and promotions,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “No amount of contrived and ridiculous legal arguments can be obscured in this pre-litigation filing. The fact that fans choose the music they want to hear.”
Representatives for Spotify, Apple, and Drake and Lamar did not immediately respond to CBS News’ request for comment.
UMG owns Lamar’s label, Interscope, and Republic Records, where Drake has spent his entire career. Drake has mentioned UMG CEO Lucian Grainge several times in his lyrics over the years, including on 2023’s “Far From Home” – rapping “Who’s the CEO of Universal? They’re wrong , because Google is talking about Lucian, but that doesn’t make any sense at all. Who brings home the bacon? This quote seems to indicate how important Drake is to the label as the second most streamed artist on Spotify (behind Taylor Swift). Sex, the latter’s Big Machine Records is also distributed by UMG.
The petition alleges that Universal Music Group fired certain employees deemed loyal to Drake during his label feud with Lamar and rebuffed his attempts to negotiate, insisting that Drake negotiate directly with Lamar. Instead of negotiating with the label.
The petition filed Monday is not a lawsuit but a pre-suit motion seeking to gather more information from UMG and Spotify to pursue civil claims under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly known as RICO.
The legal action comes just days after Lamar released “GNX,” his first album since the beef. Lamar referenced the feud multiple times on the project, including Snoop Dogg releasing a diss track by Drake and Lil Wayne taking offense to Lamar’s headlines. 2025 super bowl halftime show In New Orleans.
