Drake has withdrawn a legal challenge he made against his own label, Universal Music Group (UMG), and Spotify, alleging they artificially inflated the popularity of a Kendrick Lamar diss track about him.
UMG and Spotify were accused of trying to “manipulate and saturate the streaming services and airwaves”. Lawyers for the rapper had claimed that UMG paid influencers and radio stations to play the track, Not Like Us, which topped the US charts and proved to be the hammer blow in the Drake-Lamar feud between March and May last year.
It was also alleged that UMG used bots to stream Not Like Us on Spotify in huge numbers, “and deceive consumers into believing the song was more popular than it was in reality”. UMG was accused of paying Apple “to have its voice-activated digital assistant, Siri, purposely misdirect users to Not Like Us” and had “been taking steps in an apparent effort to conceal its schemes, including, but not limited to, by terminating employees associated with or perceived as having loyalty to Drake”.
Both Drake and Lamar release music through UMG, Drake via Republic Records and Lamar via Interscope.
UMG, which called the allegations “contrived and absurd” said: “The suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue.” Spotify also denied the allegations, saying: “Spotify has no economic incentive for users to stream Not Like Us over any of Drake’s tracks.”
The filing was not a lawsuit, but a petition for documents in preparation for a potential lawsuit filing.
In New York court documents seen by the Guardian, Drake has now withdrawn that request, with the document reading: “Petitioner hereby voluntarily discontinues this special proceeding as to all respondents without costs to any party.”
Drake previously filed another petition in Texas, alleging UMG paid the radio group iHeartRadio to play Not Like Us, and that UMG allowed the release of the track despite knowing it contained accusations of Drake being a “certified paedophile”, which Drake denied. That petition remains active.
After numerous diss tracks from each rapper, Lamar was generally considered the winner. Not Like Us, which also alleged Drake was a “coloniser” leeching off the hip-hop scene, scored the highest single-day and week-long streams of any rap song on Spotify.
Drake has released relatively little music after the feud: four tracks in August, plus two appearances on Camila Cabello’s album and another with Mexican-American group Fuerza Regida. But he returned to solo material earlier this month with the freestyle Fighting Irish, which looked back on the Lamar feud and friendships lost over it.
“The world fell in love with the gimmicks, even my brothers got tickets / Seemed like they loved every minute / Just know this shit is personal to us, and it wasn’t just business … I was sadly mistaken, the loyalty wasn’t a given”, he rapped. He also referred to the “coloniser” accusation, rapping “I’m starin’ at my daddy” – Drake’s father is African American.
