Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s ongoing feud already had high marks for being the most technology-driven rap feud of all time. These tracks on Instagram, lyric breakdowns in podcastsconcerts broadcast live on Amazon Prime Video. This week, however, the role technology plays in the dispute reached new highs (or maybe lows?) via a pair of court filings from Drake, both pointing out the importance of music streaming platforms in the popular music.
In the first filing, a pre-action petition filed Monday in New York, lawyers for Drake’s company, Frozen Moments, accused Lamar’s record label, Universal Music Group (UMG), of using various methods to increase profits. plays of “Not Like Us,” including accusations that the record company paid Apple to have Siri direct listeners to the track when they requested it. certified lover.
Drake’s lawyers wrote that “online sources reported that when users asked Siri to play the album certified lover by artist Aubrey Drake Graham d/b/a Drake, Siri instead played ‘Not Like Us,’ which contains the lyrics ‘certified pedophile,’ an accusation against Drake.” It also alleges that UMG, which is also Drake’s label, “paid or approved payments to” Apple for Siri to do this.
In a second filing filed in Texas that was made public Tuesday, Drake’s attorneys accused UMG of defamationalleging that the record label could have stopped the release of “Not Like Us” or modified it to remove some of its “false” statements about Drake.
Defamation and Siri soup are just some of the claims made in the petitions. They also allege that UMG charged Spotify reduced licensing fees in exchange for the streaming service recommending Lamar’s song to listeners. There are also claims that UMG used bots to inflate streaming numbers for “Not Like Us,” which is approaching one billion streams on Spotify and was nominated for five Grammy Awards earlier this month.
The first petition seeks “pre-action disclosure” of any evidence UMG or Spotify have regarding these allegations. The second does the same with UMG and iHeartRadio, the radio company that Drake’s lawyers claim also participated in a “pay per play scheme”to promote “Not Like Us.”
Throughout their feud, which has been escalating since Lamar called out Drake on “Like That” in the spring and seemed all but over after he released “Not Like Us,” both rappers have taken jabs at each other over through songs. Accusations of domestic violence, hypocrisy and authenticity have been normal. That’s how hip-hop feuds work. But in a war of words that’s become as heated as Drake and Lamar’s, seeing it now go to court over Spotify streams and Siri suggestions seems lackluster and the epitome of what happens when rap conflicts become so intertwined with the technology. Longtime hip-hop fans will always have their opinions on who “won” the fight, but the all-time record still features cold, hard numbers, from Spotify streams to likes on an IG post.