Months after Drake and Kendrick Lamar‘s explosive beef hit wax, it’d hit the courtroom subsequent.
On Monday, Drake initiated a petition in a Manhattan court docket towards Common Music Group and Spotify, claiming each entities artificially inflated the recognition of Lamar’s scathing diss observe, “Not Like Us,” which is up for 5 Grammy nominations.
Drake’s Frozen Moments LLC is accusing UMG, which additionally distributes his music, of partaking in an unlawful “scheme” to spice up the diss observe’s numbers, which allegedly included bots and payola, or paying radio stations to play a music with out disclosing the transaction.
In line with Selection, Drake is accusing his label of partaking “in conduct designed to artificially inflate the recognition of ‘Not Like Us’ … together with by licensing the music at drastically diminished charges to Spotify and utilizing ‘bots’ to generate the misunderstanding that the music was extra standard than it was in actuality.”
The swimsuit is even alleging tech big Apple was in on the shenanigans, saying, “On data and perception, UMG paid, or authorized funds to, Apple Inc. to have its voice-activated digital assistant ‘Siri’ purposely misdirect customers to ‘Not Like Us.’”
“UMG didn’t depend on probability, and even unusual enterprise practices,” the petition continues. “It as an alternative launched a marketing campaign to govern and saturate the streaming providers and airwaves.”
The declare carries a heavy accusation that UMG violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
In an announcement to Advanced, a UMG spokesperson responded to the petition, saying, “The suggestion that UMG would do something to undermine any of its artists is offensive and unfaithful. We make use of the very best moral practices in our advertising and promotional campaigns. No quantity of contrived and absurd authorized arguments on this pre-action submission can masks the truth that followers select the music they need to hear.”
The petition arrives just a few days after Lamar’s shock GNX album. On the observe “wacced out murals,” the Compton rapper recalled his shock when Snoop Dogg reposted Drake’s “Taylor Made Freestyle,” which options AI deepfakes of Snoop and 2pac rapping.
“Snoop posted ‘Taylor Made,’ I prayed it was the edibles/I could not consider it, it was solely proper for me to let it go,” Lamar rapped.