Kendrick Lamar’s diss observe turned chart-topping hit “Not Like Us” has hit 1 billion streams on Spotify.
The critically acclaimed music, launched amid an ongoing feud with rapper Drake, is the most recent to hitch Spotify’s Billions Membership, which marks the milestone of surpassing 1 billion streams on the service. Different members of the unique membership embody The Weeknd, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Billie Eilish and Tyler the Creator.
Lamar’s “Not Like Us” is one in every of a number of diss tracks the rapper launched towards the Licensed Lover Boy artist. Lamar dropped “euphoria” just a few days earlier than one other observe “meet the grahams,” which was launched the day earlier than “Not Like Us.”
The music was one in every of 2024’s largest hits, spending two weeks atop the Billboard Sizzling 100 and 20 weeks at No. 1 on the Sizzling Rap Songs chart. The music is nominated for 5 Grammy Awards, together with music and document of the 12 months. It transcended a easy diss observe, changing into a global and cultural anthem.
“Not Like Us” is on the middle of a defamation swimsuit from Drake towards Common Music Group, the mum or dad document label he and Lamar are each signed to. The brand new lawsuit claims UMG “authorized, revealed and launched a marketing campaign to create a viral hit out of a rap observe” that was “supposed to convey the particular, unmistakable and false factual allegation that Drake is a legal pedophile, and to recommend that the general public ought to resort to vigilante justice in response.”
In November, Drake’s Frozen Moments firm filed a petition in a New York courtroom alleging that UMG “launched a marketing campaign to govern and saturate the streaming providers and airwaves with a music, ‘Not Like Us,’ so as to make that music go viral, together with by utilizing ‘bots’ and pay-to-play agreements.” Each Spotify and UMG refuted the claims, with the document label saying the allegations had been “offensive and unfaithful.”
“UMG and Spotify have by no means had any association during which UMG charged Spotify licensing charges 30 % decrease than its typical licensing charges for ‘Not Like Us’ in trade for Spotify affirmatively recommending [‘Not Like Us’], together with ‘to customers who’re looking for different songs and artists,’ ” the streamer mentioned in an announcement following the petition.
