Drake seems to think that Kendrick Lamar’s successful streaming numbers for “Not Like Us” are too good to be true.
Because on Monday (November 25), Drake responded to Lamar via a new legal filing regarding the song’s millions and millions of streams — just one day after K-Dot’s surprise release His latest effort, the album GNXamid an ongoing and long-simmering public feud between two famous hip-hop artists.
In the filing, Drake’s legal team claims sky-high numbers for Lamar’s 2024 single “Not Like Us” — a diss track Drake released earlier this year that has since attracted followers national zeitgeist – has been artificially inflated by Universal Music Group and Spotify through questionable means including the unethical practice of the music industry known as “payola”.
In May, “Not Like Us” debuted at number one on the chart Billboard Hot 100, opened with a staggering 70.9 million streams, 5 million radio audience impressions and a total of 15,000 copies sold, according to official sales data.
Drake has initiated legal action against Universal Music Group and Spotify over allegations that the two companies conspired to artificially inflate the popularity of Kendrick Lamar’s song “Not Like Us.”
(through @Billboard) pic.twitter.com/1f4sG4M8rz
— Cultural Craving 🍿 (@CultureCrave) November 25, 2024
But in Manhattan court on Monday, Drake’s Frozen Moments LLC accused UMG of pursuing an illegal “scheme” that involved using payola, bots and other methods to inflate its song streams. Lamar artificially, like Diversity report.
The filing alleges that UMG “engaged in conduct designed to artificially inflate the popularity of ‘Not Like Us’ […] including licensing the song at a significantly reduced price to Spotify and using ‘bots’ to create the false impression that the song was more popular than it actually was.”
It also stated, “UMG appears to have used similar tactics with other streaming services. On information and belief, UMG has paid or approved payments to Apple Inc. to assistant Voice-activated digital device ‘Siri’ intentionally misdirects users to ‘Not ‘Like Us.'”
As noted by BillboardHowever, Monday’s legal filing is not yet an actual lawsuit. Instead, it is a “pre-action” petition, a document under New York law made to secure information before a lawsuit is filed. However, that means this could become a full-blown lawsuit in the future.
Tags Kendrick Lamar, Drake