Drake withdraws legal petition over Kendrick Lamar diss track
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Drake had alleged Universal Music Group and Spotify each manipulated the popularity of Lamar’s track Not Like Us. Drake has withdrawn a legal challenge he made against his own label, Universal Music Group (UMG), and Spotify, alleging they artificially inflated the popularity of a Kendrick Lamar diss track about him.
UMG and Spotify were accused of trying to “manipulate and saturate the streaming services and airwaves”. Lawyers for the rapper had claimed that UMG paid influencers and radio stations to play the track, Not Like Us, which topped the US charts and proved to be the hammer blow in the Drake-Lamar feud between March and May last year.
It was also alleged that UMG used bots to stream Not Like Us on Spotify in huge numbers, “and deceive consumers into believing the song was more popular than it was in reality”. UMG was accused of paying Apple “to have its voice-activated digital assistant, Siri, purposely misdirect users to Not Like Us” and had “been taking steps in an apparent effort to conceal its schemes, including, but not limited to, by terminating employees associated with or perceived as having loyalty to Drake”.
Both Drake and Lamar release music through UMG, Drake via Republic Records and Lamar via Interscope. UMG, which called the allegations “contrived and absurd” said: “The suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue.” Spotify also denied the allegations, saying: “Spotify has no economic incentive for users to stream Not Like Us over any of Drake’s tracks.”.
