Rapper Drake's company Frozen Moments filed a lawsuit in a New York court on Monday accusing streaming service Spotify and Universal Music Group of conspiring to increase streams of Kendrick Lamar's hit diss track “Not Like Us.”
Consequences of “Not Like Us” Lamar and Drake's week-long beefbroke records billboard rap chartRetained the top spot throughout the summer. Frozen Moments, which is described in the filing as a “wholly owned entity of Drake”, alleges that UMG “contributed to” “Not Like Us” through bots and pay-for-play agreements on streaming services and Has launched a campaign to manipulate and saturate the airwaves.”
The filing alleges that the song was licensed to Spotify at a 30% discount in exchange for promoting users' recommendations – according to the service, the track now has over 900 million streams on Spotify. The petition also alleges that UMG used bots to run streams on “Not Like Us”, paid radio promoters to increase air play and even paid tech giant Apple to use its voice assistant. Paid to misdirect Siri users to Lamar's hit song.
UMG described the allegations as “outrageous and untrue”.
“We adopt the highest ethical practices in our marketing and promotional campaigns,” UMG said in a statement. “No amount of fanciful and absurd legal arguments in this pre-action submission can hide the fact that fans choose the music they want to hear.”
UMG owns both Interscope, Lamar's label, and Republic Records, where Drake has spent his entire career. Drake has mentioned UMG CEO Lucian Grainge in songs several times over the years, including on 2023's “Away From Home” – rapping “Who's the CEO of Universal? They made a mistake, 'cause Google's saying Lucian, but It doesn't make any sense. Who's filling the piggy bank? Who's bringing home the bacon?” The line appears to point to Drake's perceived importance to the label as Spotify's second-most streamed artist behind Taylor Swift, whose Big Machine Records is also distributed by UMG.
According to the petition, UMG fired some employees considered loyal to Drake during the inter-label dispute with Lamar, and rejected their attempts to negotiate, insisting that Drake handle it directly rather than through the label. Take it with Lamar.
The petition filed Monday is not a lawsuit, but a pre-action motion to gather more information from UMG and Spotify in pursuit of a civil claim under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly known as RICO. Is.
This legal action comes just days after Lamar released his first album since the beef, “GNX.” Lamar referenced the feud several times on the project, including Snoop Dogg posting a diss track of Drake and Lil Wayne insulting Lamar headlining. 2025 super bowl halftime show In New Orleans.