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, live shows livestreamed on Amazon Prime Video. This week, although, the position know-how performs within the dustup hit new highs (or lows?) by way of a pair of courtroom filings from Drake, each of them pointing to the significance of streaming music platforms in widespread music.
Within the first submitting, a pre-action petition filed Monday in New York, attorneys for Drake’s firm Frozen Moments accused Lamar’s document label Common Music Group (UMG) of utilizing a number of strategies to extend performs on “Not Like Us,” together with allegations that the document firm paid Apple to have Siri direct listeners to the observe after they requested Licensed Loverboy.
Drake’s attorneys 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 comprises the lyric ‘licensed pedophile,’ an allegation towards Drake.” It additionally alleges UMG, which can be Drake’s label, “paid, or permitted funds to” Apple to have Siri do that.
In a second submitting made in Texas that grew to become public on Tuesday, Drake’s attorneys accused UMG of defamation, claiming the document label might 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 lowered licensing charges in change for the streaming service recommending Lamar’s track 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 concerning 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 by way of songs. Allegations concerning 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 recommendations feels each lackluster and the epitome of what occurs when rap beefs turn out to be so intertwined with know-how. Longtime hip-hop followers will all the time have their opinions about who “received” the meat, however the historic document nonetheless counts chilly, laborious numbers—from Spotify streams to likes on an IG submit.
