Drake claims Spotify, Universal artificially inflated Kendrick Lamar’s Not Like Us success

Drake has launched a court petition against Universal Music Group and Spotify, accusing the two companies of artificially inflating the success of Kendrick Lamar's diss track Not Like Us. Photo / Getty Images

Kendrick Lamar’s song topped the Billboard charts and was a summer hit, but a company owned by Drake claims in a court petition that it was rigged against him.

A company owned by Drake has taken legal action against Universal Music Group and Spotify, claiming in a petition filed Monday that the two music corporations artificially inflated the success of Kendrick Lamar’s popular anti-Drake diss track, Not Like Us.

The pre-action petition, filed by Drake’s Frozen Moments LLC in a New York court, alleges that Universal and Spotify used bots, the practice of payola and other deceptive business practices to boost Lamar’s summertime bop, which went No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 shortly after its debut.

The petition alleges that UMG and Spotify violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), which is often used in criminal cases over organised crime, as well as false advertising and deceptive business practice laws in New York.

Universal has denied any wrongdoing. “The suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue,” a spokesperson for UMG said in a statement to the Washington Post. “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.”

Representatives for Lamar, Drake and Spotify did not respond to the Post’s requests for comment.

Kendrick Lamar's song Not Like US topped the Billboard charts. Photo / Getty Images

The petition was filed mere days after Lamar released his new album, GNX, in which he takes slight jabs at Drake following the war of words between the two rappers earlier this year. Both Lamar and Drake are signed to the UMG record label. Despite Drake’s claims against Spotify, the Canadian rapper still has millions more monthly listeners than Lamar, even after the release of GNX.

The filing says UMG “launched a campaign to manipulate and saturate the streaming services and airwaves with a song, Not Like Us, to make that song go viral, including by using ‘bots’ and pay-to-play agreements".

The petition claims that UMG paid or approved payments to Apple so Siri would “misdirect” music listeners to the song. The filing points to a Vibe article in which people said they asked Siri to play Drake’s 2021 album Certified Lover Boy but were offered Not Like Us instead, since it contains the phrase “certified paedophile” - an accusation Lamar tossed at Drake during the song.

The petition says UMG employees loyal to Drake were fired from the company, and that Lamar’s label paid influencers to promote the song without disclosing it.

According to the petition, Drake has been trying to engage with UMG over “the ongoing harm he has suffered as a result of UMG’s action,” but Universal hasn’t engaged with Drake. Instead, according to the filing, UMG told the Hotline Bling rapper to sue Lamar “and even threatened to bring its own legal claims” against Lamar “if Drake were to pursue claims against UMG”.

Lamar’s Not Like Us - which accused Drake of being a paedophile, a liar and a “coloniser” of the Atlanta rap scene - was deemed by many as the song that won the California rapper the beef between the two hip-hop stars. The song has more than 914 million streams on Spotify and is up for five Grammy Awards.

Lamar performed Not Like Us and his other body of work at his Pop Out show in Los Angeles on Juneteenth. He also announced he will perform at the half-time show at next year’s Super Bowl. His new album, GNX, debuted to widespread critical acclaim.

Since the beef, Drake has shared documentary footage from his career on a project-specific website and released a handful of songs that briefly mention his post-beef thoughts. He announced on Sunday that he would be performing in Australia on Super Bowl Sunday in February, and that he was close to finishing a new album with collaborator PartyNextDoor.