The “Hotline Bling” rapper files a couple of petitions against a recording label and a couple of music streaming platforms.
Drake, full name Aubrey Graham, accuses Universal Music Group and Spotify of conspiring to boost Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” using bots and payola, according to court documents filed last month.
Filed in the New York Supreme Court, the laundry list of allegations including Spotify launching a campaign to make sure the song went viral, UMG engaging in payola by paying off independent radio promoters, and UMG removing copyright restrictions on YouTube and Twitch to encourage influencers to spread the song. The petition also accuses UMG and Spotify of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, the NY Deceptive Business and NY False Advertising.
“UMG’s schemes … were motivated, at least in part, by the desire of executives at Interscope to maximize their own profits,” the rapper’s legal team said. “Executives at Interscope have been incentivized to maximize the financial success of Interscope through the promotion of ‘Not Like Us’ and its revitalizing impact on the artist’s prior recording catalog.”
As Graham’s petition made headlines, UMG would release a statement of their own:
“The suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue … 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.”
Graham also filed a petition against UMG and iHeartRadio based on similar allegations, with a trial set for later this month (Dec. 19). The petitions serve as an opportunity to gather information for a potential lawsuit, with the one against UMG and Spotify happening on Jan. 16 of next year.
Lamar’s “Not Like Us” took over social media and headlines with accusations of pedophilia and ripping off hip-hop culture. Not only did the Compton-born rapper throw out heavy accusations, the antics added fuel to the fire — one being that he lifted copyright restrictions for a short while so that the public can use it without penalty.
The feud between the two rappers began with Lamar’s feature on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That.” During his feature, Lamar accused both Drake and J. Cole of sneak dissing during their own collaboration in 2023, “First Person Shooter.”
The subliminal diss in question was when J. Cole rapped:
“Love when they argue the hardest MC/Is it K-Dot? Is it Aubrey? Or me?/We the big three like we started a league?”
Lamar would directly hit back, rapping:
“Think I won’t drop the location? I still got PTSD/Motherf—k the Big 3, n—a, it’s just big me.”
He would later direct his energy to Drake, taking jabs at the Canadian rapper while using double entendres relating to Drake’s latest album — For All The Dogs.
While J. Cole stood silently on the sidelines, and gave no response, it took three weeks for Drake to conjure a response to Lamar’s vicious verse. The response came in the sense of a leaked song, though people questioned its authenticity. Drake would later send the official track to DJ Akademiks to premiere on his livestream.
As GQ phrased it, the Canadian rapper rapped over a seven-minute, “dark and brooding beat” as he shot back against all of the people who came for him during the three-week period since “Like That.”
Lamar’s verse on the song as well as Future and Metro Boomin’s collaborative album, We Don’t Trust You, sparked an industry-wide civil war. Various rappers made their mark in the beef, including Rick Ross, A$AP Rocky, The Weeknd and Kanye West.
These rappers would align themselves with Lamar, specifically West, who previewed his verse on an unofficial remix to “Like That.”
“[Future] called me and I went to the studio and laid that. We went through the creative process of adding the chords and called the Hooligans out in London to get on the joint,” West explained in an interview with Justin LaBoy.
Lamar and Drake’s relationship has been rocky for more than a decade, especially when Lamar was first coming up. Drake would include Lamar as the list of features on his sophomore album, Take Care. The Canadian rapper would later invite Lamar as an opening act on his 2012 Club Paradise Tour.
Later that year, the duo appeared on A$AP Rocky’s “F—kin’ Problems” and collaborated on Lamar’s “Poetic Justice.” This would end the era of collaboration between the two as the Compton-born rapper would take aim at Drake the following year.
The swipe would lead to a decade worth of tension and disses, though they never amounted to this level of media attention.
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