Drake Prepares to Sue Over 'Not Like Us,' Claims Universal Music Group and Spotify Conspired to Make the Song a Hit

Drake seems to think Kendrick Lamar's successful streaming numbers for "Not Like Us" are just too good to be true.

Because on Monday (Nov. 25), Drake responded to Lamar through a new legal filing regarding the song's millions upon millions of streams — just one day after K-Dot surprise-released his latest effort, the album GNX, amid what's now an ongoing and long-simmering public feud between the two prominent hip-hop artists.

In the filing, Drake's legal team claims the lofty figures for Lamar's 2024 single "Not Like Us" — a Drake diss track issued earlier this year that subsequently captured the national zeitgeist — were artificially inflated by Universal Music Group and Spotify through questionable means that included the unethical music industry practice known as "payola."

Back in May, "Not Like Us" debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, opening with a staggering 70.9 million streams, five million radio airplay audience impressions and 15,000 total copies sold, according to the official sales data.

But in Manhattan court on Monday, Drake's Frozen Moments LLC accused UMG of pursuing an illegal "scheme" that involved the use of payola, bots and other methods to artificially inflate the streams of Lamar's song, as Variety reported.

The filing alleges that UMG "engaged in conduct designed to artificially inflate the popularity of 'Not Like Us' […] including by licensing the song at drastically reduced rates to Spotify and using 'bots' to generate the false impression that the song was more popular than it was in reality."

It also claims, "UMG appears to have used similar tactics with other streaming services. On information and belief, UMG paid, or approved payments to, Apple Inc. to have its voice-activated digital assistant 'Siri' purposely misdirect users to 'Not Like Us.'"

As noted by Billboard, however, Monday's legal filing is not yet an actual lawsuit. Instead, it is a "pre-action" petition, a document under New York law made to secure information before filing a suit. Still, that means this could turn into a full lawsuit in the future.

Tags

Kendrick Lamar, Drake