Drake alleged in a court docket submitting Monday that Common Music Group falsely pumped up the recognition on Spotify and different streaming companies of Kendrick Lamar’s Not Like Us, a music that viciously attacked Drake amid a bitter feud between the 2 hip-hop superstars.
The petition in a New York court docket by the rapper’s firm Frozen Moments LLC calls for the preservation and divulgence of knowledge that is likely to be proof in a possible lawsuit towards UMG, which is the distributor for the file labels of each Drake and Lamar.
In allegations that UMG calls “offensive and unfaithful,” the submitting says the file firm “launched a marketing campaign to govern and saturate the streaming companies and airwaves with a music, ‘Not Like Us,’ with the intention to make that music go viral, together with by utilizing ‘bots’ and pay-to-play agreements.” It mentioned the corporate and Spotify “have a long-standing, symbiotic enterprise relationship” and alleges that UMG provided particular licensing charges to Spotify for the music.
The petition additionally says UMG has fired staff seen as loyal to Drake “in an obvious effort to hide its schemes.”
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Common Music Group mentioned in a press release in response that 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.”
Not Like Us, the wildly well-liked Lamar single launched in Might as a part of a flurry of duelling tracks by the 2 artists, contains the lyrics, “Say, Drake, I hear you want ’em younger, You higher not ever go to cell block one.” It has gotten greater than 900 million performs, in keeping with figures listed on Spotify.
Spotify representatives declined speedy remark, however in a press release on a earlier case, the corporate mentioned it “invests closely in automated and handbook evaluations to forestall, detect, and mitigate the affect of synthetic streaming on our platform,” and in broader public statements has mentioned it has gone to nice lengths to mitigate the consequences of dangerous actors on streaming numbers and royalties.
The feud between Drake, a 38-year-old Canadian rapper and singer and five-time Grammy winner, and Lamar, a 37-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner who is ready to headline the subsequent Tremendous Bowl halftime, is among the many largest in hip-hop in recent times, with two of the style’s largest stars at its centre.
The 2 have been occasional collaborators greater than a decade in the past, however Lamar started taking public jabs at Drake beginning in 2013. The battle escalated steeply earlier this 12 months.
The transfer to court docket, whereas not but a lawsuit, nonetheless represents a serious escalation of the feud and includes a number of the largest enterprise companions of each males.
© 2024 The Canadian Press
