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Media personality DJ Akademiks recently claimed that Drake and Camilla Cabello's song, Hot Uptown, outstreamed the highly anticipated Kendrick Lamar and Pusha T song, Chains & Whips, from Clipse's newly released album, Let God Sort 'Em Out. For the uninitiated, Hot Uptown (featuring Drake) is the eighth track from Cabello's 2024 album, C,XOXO.
On June 13, 2024, Akademiks took to his X account to make this claim, adding two screenshots supposedly comparing the streaming numbers of Hot Uptown and Chains & Whips.
The first screenshot claimed that Hot Uptown debuted at #149 on the Global Spotify charts with 1.518 million streams. The other screenshot was an X post from @chartdata, which reported that Chains & Whips debuted at #157 on the Global Spotify charts with 1.42 million streams.
Furthermore, Akademiks claimed that Drake's "throwaway" collab outstreamed Chains & Whips despite the latter allegedly earning "every industry co-sign," writing:
Trending
"Drakes throwaway camilia cabello collab with no promo out streamed Kendrick Lamar and Pusha T song after every industry co-sign btw."
Everything to know about Kendrick Lamar and Clipse's Chains & Whips
Chains & Whips is one of the first songs promoted from Clipse's new album, Let God Sort 'Em Out. The song was first previewed at the Louis Vuitton Spring/Summer 2024 runway in June 2023. For the uninitiated, Pharrell Williams, who produced the Clipse album, is also the creative director for LV's menswear.
In a GQ interview, dated June 2, 2025, Pusha T revealed that Def Jam Recordings wanted to block Kendrick Lamar's verse from the song. While the record label claimed the censor was due to Lamar using the phrase "Trump card" in the song, Pusha believed the actual reason was Drake's defamation lawsuit against UMG, which is Def Jam's parent company.
Pusha T and his brother, Malice, stated they refused to censor Kendrick Lamar's verse and left Def Jam, instead choosing to sign and distribute with Jay-Z's Roc Nation.
“They wanted me to ask Kendrick to censor his verse, which of course I was never doing. And then they wanted me to take the record off. And so, after a month of not doing it, Steve Gawley, the lawyer over there, was like, ‘We'll just drop the Clipse.’ But that can't work because I'm still there [solo]. But [if] you let us all go….” Pusha said.
In a recent interview with Apple Music, dated July 10, Pusha T revealed how the collaboration with Kendrick Lamar came into existence. He said one of Lamar's publishers, who was in Paris with Clipse and Pharrell Williams, called the Compton rapper from the studio to tell him about the Clipse album.
“We had the record. We were in the studio just creating an album, and his publisher happened to be in the studio. It was in Paris, and just was listening and called Dot and was like, ‘Listen, you need to be on this album,'" Pusha T said.
Pusha T and Malice reportedly sent over a few tracks for Kendrick Lamar to choose from, and he responded with a verse for Chains & Whips.
"And so we sent him a few records. I was like, ‘Man, listen here, take them, whatever you want.’ And man, through everything that was going on, man, he really came back with that. And I mean, if you just think about the time, it was like anybody could have used the excuse not to. You know what I’m saying?”
Clipse and Pharrell Williams released Chains & Whips on July 10, 2025, a day ahead of the album's release.
