TOO POPULAR

Drake Is Taking His Feud With Kendrick Lamar to the Courts

The Canadian rapper thinks the popularity of Lamar’s diss track, “Not Like Us,” isn’t on the level.

According to Drake, there’s something up with fellow rapper Kendrick Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us” getting so popular. That’s the gist of a filing Monday in Manhattan court, where Frozen Moments LLC, Drake’s company, accused Universal Music Group (UMG) of creating a “scheme” that “artificially inflated” Lamar’s acclaimed song through bots and payola. “UMG did not rely on chance, or ever ordinary business practices,” the filing claims. “It instead launched a campaign to manipulate and saturate the streaming services and airwaves.” One alleged instance, according to Drake’s attorneys, was UMG paying Apple to make Siri “purposely misdirect users” to Lamar’s song. The filing doesn’t constitute a lawsuit, but a “pre-action disclosure.” A spokesman for UMG, where Drake himself is signed, denied the allegations in a statement to Rolling Stone. “The suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue,” they said. “We employ the highest ethical practices in our marketing and promotional campaigns. 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.”