Spotify has formally entered the Drake–Kendrick Lamar beef group chat.
The highest music streamer responded to Drake’s declare that the corporate inflated the streams of Lamar’s diss music geared toward him on Friday in a brand new submitting, saying: “UMG and Spotify have by no means had any association through which UMG charged Spotify licensing charges 30 % decrease than its traditional licensing charges for ‘Not Like Us’ in change for Spotify affirmatively recommending [‘Not Like Us]’, together with ‘to customers who’re looking for different songs and artists.’”
“The Petition claims that an unidentified particular person reported on a podcast that he used bots to realize 30,000,000 streams on Spotify within the first days of the discharge of ‘Not Like Us.’ Spotify discovered no proof to substantiate this declare,” the streamer continued in its opposition papers.
Spotify’s submitting comes a month after Drake’s Frozen Moments firm filed a petition in a New York courtroom and alleged that Spotify inflated the streams of “Not Like Us” and that UMG — the father or mother label each rappers are signed to — “launched a marketing campaign to govern and saturate the streaming companies and airwaves with a music, ‘Not Like Us,’ with the intention to make that music go viral, together with by utilizing ‘bots’ and pay-to-play agreements.”
“Spotify has no financial incentive for customers to stream ‘Not Like Us” over any of Drake’s tracks. Solely one among Spotify for Artists’ instruments, Marquee, was bought on behalf of the music, for €500 to advertise the monitor in France. Marquee is a visible advert that’s disclosed to customers as a Sponsored Suggestion,” a spokesperson for Spotify mentioned.
Shortly after Drake’s declare, UMG mentioned that the allegations had been “offensive and unfaithful.” Drake is signed to UMG subsidiary Republic Data, whereas Lamar is signed to UMG’s Interscope Data. The petition got here days after Lamar launched the shock album GNX and months earlier than he’ll headline the Tremendous Bowl halftime present.
In its submitting, Spotify says it “invests closely in automated and guide opinions to stop, detect, and mitigate the affect of synthetic streaming on our platform. After we establish tried stream manipulation, we take motion that will embody eradicating streaming numbers, withholding royalties and charging penalty charges. Confirmed and suspected synthetic streams are additionally faraway from our chart calculations. This helps us to guard royalty payouts for trustworthy, hardworking artists.”
Lamar’s “Not Like Us” is likely one of the yr’s greatest hits. It spent two weeks on prime of the all-genre Billboard Sizzling 100 chart; it spent 20 at No. 1 on the Sizzling rap songs chart. The music is nominated for 5 Grammy Awards, together with music and report of the yr. It has turn into a global, cultural anthem and greater than a diss monitor.
Lamar launched the anthemic West Coast banger in Could after the rappers’ feud resurfaced in March. After going forwards and backwards with diss songs, Lamar dropped “Not Like Us,” calling Drake a pedophile and accusing him of appropriating Black tradition. The upbeat DJ Mustard-produced monitor set streaming data and spectators topped Lamar the winner of the battle because of this. The meat originated in 2013 when Lamar — who previously collaborated with Drake and opened for him on tour — despatched jabs to 11 of his contemporaries by his visitor verse on Huge Sean’s “Management.”
