Drake Wants A Courtroom Drama So Bad
Notes on a crash out.
More from Hung Up this week: “I learned all the wrong lessons from the Martha Stewart documentary” … “_________ (Holding Space for ‘Defying Gravity’)” … “FOUR YEARS OF HUNG UP”
I wondered what Drake’s response would be to Kendrick Lamar surprise-dropping “GNX,” a 12-song victory lap celebrating the pair’s song-to-song combat in the spring. Would Drake stomp around his ugly house, steam coming out of his ears, big-stepping so loudly he was swallowed up into the ground like another famous and insecure man with a temper? Would he hole up in a hookah lounge and will a third season of Euphoria into production? Would he put up a big fuss about being tender-headed while his braider slapped his hands back down to his sides? There is a verison of his wounded-ego where he goes full MAGA. The reality is somehow more pathetic than all of that: He decided to squabble up in court.
In a legal petition filed in the New York Supreme Court on Monday, lawyers for Drake allege that Universal Music Group (UMG) and Spotify secretly and intentionally inflated the popularity of “Not Like Us.” Kendrick Lamar’s Drake diss, released in May, alleges (among other things) that Drake’s crew harbors pedophiles and that Drake uses Atlanta and black artists for clout.1 Per Billboard, lawyers for Drake invoked the federal “RICO” statute, claiming that UMG “did not rely on chance, or even ordinary business practices … It instead launched a campaign to manipulate and saturate the streaming services and airwaves.”
Drake’s lawyers claim that UMG paid influencers to promote the song, used bots to falsely increase streams, and charged reduced licensing rates to Spotify in exchange for the streaming service including “Not Like Us” on playlists and pushing the song onto listeners who searched for unrelated music. In a twist that is straight Shondaland: Not only does Drake’s side allege that UMG doubled down and fired employees “with loyalty to Drake,”2 they say Siri was part of the scheme to prop up “Not Like Us,” a song that definitely wasn’t inescapable all summer. “Online sources reported that when users asked Siri to play the album ‘Certified Lover Boy’ by [Drake], Siri instead played ‘Not Like Us,’” Drake’s attorneys claim, “which contains the lyric ‘certified pedophile,’ an allegation against Drake.”
In response, a UMG spokesperson said some version of let’s do it baby, I know the law.
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