(26 Nov 2024)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Los Angeles – 23 May 2021
1. Medium of Drake posing
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Los Angeles – 17 March 2011
2. Medium zoom out Drake on arrivals line
3. Medium of Drake speaking to reporter
ASSOCIATED PRESS
New York – 23 September 2013
4. Medium Drake posing with models wearing FIFA jerseys
5. Medium Drake talking to soccer player Tim Cahill
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Los Angeles – 25 March 2015
6. Medium Drake walking
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Inglewood, California – 19 June 2024
7. Medium zoom out Kendrick Lamar starts "They Not Like Us"
8. Wide Russell Westbrook and DJ Mustard dancing on-stage
9. Wide crowd raps along to "They Not Like Us"
10. Medium zoom out Kendrick Lamar organizes group photo on-stage
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Paris – 23 June 2022
11. Medium zoom out Kendrick Lamar makes his way to the stage at Louis Vuitton show
STORYLINE:
Drake alleged in a court filing Monday that Universal Music Group falsely pumped up the popularity on Spotify and other streaming services of Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us," a song that viciously attacked Drake amid a bitter feud between the two hip-hop superstars.
The petition in a New York court by the rapper’s company Frozen Moments LLC demands the preservation and divulgence of information that might be evidence in a potential lawsuit against UMG, which is the distributor for the record labels of both Drake and Lamar.
In allegations that UMG calls “offensive and untrue,” the filing says the record company “launched a campaign to manipulate and saturate the streaming services and airwaves with a song, ‘Not Like Us,’ in order to make that song go viral, including by using ‘bots’ and pay-to-play agreements.” It said the company and Spotify “have a long-standing, symbiotic business relationship” and alleges that UMG offered special licensing rates to Spotify for the song.
The petition also says UMG has fired employees seen as loyal to Drake "in an apparent effort to conceal its schemes."
Universal Music Group said in a statement in response that the "suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue. 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.”
“Not Like Us,” the wildly popular Lamar single released in May as part of a flurry of dueling tracks by the two artists, includes the lyrics, “Say, Drake, I hear you like ’em young, You better not ever go to cell block one.” It has gotten more than 900 million plays, according to figures listed on Spotify.
Spotify representatives declined immediate comment, but in a statement on a previous case, the company said it “invests heavily in automated and manual reviews to prevent, detect, and mitigate the impact of artificial streaming on our platform,” and in broader public statements has said it has gone to great lengths to mitigate the effects of bad actors on streaming numbers and royalties.
The feud between Drake, a 38-year-old Canadian rapper and singer and five-time Grammy winner, and Lamar, a 37-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner who is set to headline the next Super Bowl halftime, is among the biggest in hip-hop in recent years, with two of the genre’s biggest stars at its center.
Moreover, on Sunday night during a livestream with Félix Lengyel, a Quebec streamer, Drake announced that his first tour of Australia in eight years will begin on the same date as rival Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime performance.
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