Drake appears to be looking to take his feud with rapper Kendrick Lamar to court.
On Monday, Drake’s company, Frozen Moments LLC, filed a petition in New York accusing music giants Spotify and Universal Music Group of an illegal “scheme” using bots, payola and more to “artificially” inflate stats for Lamar’s diss track against the Canadian rapper, “Not Like Us.”
In portions of the filing first published by Billboard, Drake’s legal team claims, “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.”
The filing goes on to say that UMG was “motivated, at least in part, by the desire of executives at Interscope to maximize their own profits” and that those executives “have been incentivized to maximize the financial success of Interscope through the promotion of ‘Not Like Us’ and its revitalizing impact on the artist’s prior recording catalog.”
The legal documents further accuse UMG of deceptive business practices, false advertising and violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a federal statute often used to prosecute organized crime.
Drake’s legal move against UMG is somewhat shocking, considering the fact that the multinational music megacorporation has distributed his music for his entire career. Lamar has also been published under the UMG umbrella since he started in the music business. The music corporation serves as the parent company to Interscope Records, which distributed Lamar’s albums during his time on the Top Dawg Entertainment label before he left and started his own company, pgLang. Lang is licensed through Interscope.
Although Drake has initiated legal action, the court filing has yet to become a proper lawsuit. Under New York law, the “pre-action” petition is designed to secure records and information prior to a lawsuit being officially filed, according to Billboard.
A spokesperson for UMG told the publication that it denies Drake’s claims, saying, “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,” the statement continued. “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.”
The long-simmering feud between Drake and Lamar began to boil over when the two began volleying diss tracks back and forth at each other earlier this year, most notably Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” where he accused the “Hotline Bling” rapper of having relationships with underage women. Drake has denied this and other allegations made in the song.