Last year, Drake decided to solidify his loser status across the board. Kendrick Lamar definitively won the rap battle with the one-two punch (on the same weekend) of “Meet the Grahams” and “Not Like Us.” NLU was a certified banger and one of the songs of the summer, with more than a billion streams and 240 million views for the now iconic music video (directed by Kendrick and Dave Free). NLU received five Grammy nominations too, and people really hope that Kendrick performs the song at the Grammys AND the Super Bowl. Well, instead of Drake suing Kendrick over the accusations lodged in Kendrick’s songs, Drake and his lawyers decided to send legal notices to UMG (Universal) and Spotify over Kendrick’s songs. Basically, Drake accused UMG of supporting Kendrick more than him, and he also accused UMG of gaming the system and paying people/bots to support Kendrick and NLU. The consensus was that Drake was going out sad, but Drake fans insisted that he had a strong case and that he was going to change the industry. LMAO, Drake just backed down.
Drake has withdrawn his petition against Spotify and Universal Music Group after accusing the entities of launching an illegal “scheme” to boost numbers for Kendrick Lamar’s hit diss track “Not Like Us.”
In a New York filing on Tuesday reviewed by Variety, Drake and his Frozen Moments company withdrew its order to show cause seeking pre-action disclosure and preservation of certain documents and communications from both companies. The court document explains that Drake met with representatives on Tuesday and Spotify, which had filed an opposition, had no objection to the withdrawal and discontinuance, while UMG, which hadn’t filed an opposition, reserved its position.
Drake made waves in Nov. 2024 when he first accused UMG — which distributes both his and Lamar’s music — of using bots and payola to juice the numbers for “Not Like Us,” a track that accuses Drake of pedophilia and cultural appropriation. The petition, which was not a full lawsuit but rather a “pre-action” move, claimed 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.”
UMG shared a statement with Variety at the time, denouncing Drake’s accusations. “The suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue,” read the statement. “We employ the highest ethical practices in our marketing and promotional campaigns. No amount of contrived and absurd legal arguments in this pre-action submission can mask the fact that fans choose the music they want to hear.”
Hahahaha. What a loser. He didn’t have the bars, so he ran to his lawyers and now he’s backing down from that too! Some people theorized that all of this stuff from Drake was an attempt to apply pressure on Kendrick (through third parties) to not perform “Not Like Us” on the biggest stages, the Grammys and the Super Bowl Halftime Show. I actually think there’s something to that, that Drake was attempting to make everything around NLU so toxic and legally questionable that UMG would advise Kendrick not to perform it. The thing is, by backing down, Drake hasn’t made anything murky. He’s solidified Kendrick’s victory and brought even more interest to Kendrick’s performances. Also: Kendrick’s GNX is largely him sh-ttalking Drake and doing a victory lap, which might have garnered some sympathy for Drake if Drake wasn’t hellbent on being such a loser in public.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Drake’s IG, Michael Rubin’s IG, screencaps from ‘NLU’.
