Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s ongoing feud already had excessive marks for being probably the most technology-fueled rap beef of all time. Dis tracks on Instagram, lyric breakdowns on podcasts, concert events live-streamed on Amazon Prime Video. This week, although, the function know-how performs within the dustup hit all new highs (or possibly lows?) through a pair of courtroom filings from Drake, each of them pointing to the significance of streaming music platforms in well-liked music.
Within the first submitting, a pre-action petition filed Monday in New York, attorneys for Drake’s firm Frozen Moments accused Lamar’s file label Common Music Group (UMG) of utilizing a number of strategies to extend performs on “Not Like Us,” together with allegations that the file firm paid Apple to have Siri direct listeners to the observe after they requested Licensed Loverboy.
Drake’s legal professionals wrote that “on-line sources reported that when customers requested Siri to play the album Licensed Loverboy by recording artist Aubrey Drake Graham d/b/a Drake, Siri as an alternative performed ‘Not Like Us,’ which accommodates the lyric ‘licensed pedophile,’ an allegation in opposition to Drake.” It additionally alleges UMG, which can be Drake’s label, “paid, or accepted funds to” Apple to have Siri do that.
In a second submitting made in Texas that grew to become public on Tuesday, Drake’s legal professionals accused UMG of defamation, claiming the file label may have halted the discharge of “Not Like Us” or modified it to take away a few of its “false” statements about Drake.
Defamation and Siri-souping are simply a few the claims made within the petitions. Additionally they allege UMG charged Spotify decreased licensing charges in alternate for the streaming service recommending Lamar’s tune to listeners. There are additionally claims UMG used bots to inflate the streaming numbers for “Not Like Us,” which is approaching 1 billion streams on Spotify and was nominated for 5 Grammys earlier this month.
The primary petition seeks “pre-action disclosure” of any proof UMG or Spotify has relating to these allegations. The second does the identical of UMG and iHeartRadio, the radio firm Drake’s attorneys declare additionally participated in a “pay-to-play scheme” to advertise “Not Like Us.”
All through their beef—which has been escalating since Lamar referred to as out Drake on “Like That” within the spring and appeared all however ended after he dropped “Not Like Us”—each rappers have hurtled haymakers at one another via songs. Allegations relating to home violence, hypocrisy, and authenticity have been par for the course. That’s how hip-hop feuds work. However in a confrontation that bought as heated as Drake and Lamar’s did, to observe it now come to courtroom filings about Spotify streams and Siri ideas feels each lackluster and the epitome of what occurs when rap beefs change into so intertwined with know-how. Longtime hip-hop followers will at all times have their opinions about who “gained” the meat, however the historic file nonetheless counts chilly, onerous numbers—from Spotify streams to likes on an IG publish.
