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DJ Akademiks has compared Drake's legal battle with Universal Music Group (UMG) with Taylor Swift's public brawl with Scooter Braun. However, he predicted that the Canadian rapper might not win against UMG because of his alleged lesser fanbase than Taylor Swift.
According to Billboard, on Monday, November 25, Drizzy filed a pre-action petition against UMG, alleging that they partnered with conglomerates like Apple and Spotify to boost the popularity of Kendrick Lamar's artificially Not Like Us. The same day, he filed a second petition accusing UMG of allegedly striking the same deal with iHeart. Notably, UMG is responsible for distributing the work of both Drizzy and K Dot.
DJ Akademiks (aka Livingston Allen) recently went live on YouTube to discuss the legal issue between Drake and UMG. The Jamaican-American podcaster reckoned that it was similar to Taylor Swift's infamous legal battle with Big Machine Records and Scooter Braun. However, he didn't think Drake would meet the same fate as Taylor Swift.
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"I said Drake is having his Taylor Swift moment. [However,] I'm not saying that he's gonna be successful, because Taylor Swift fans rolled with Taylor Swift. They made the label say, 'Taylor, you are right and we can't go against you and so many people who love your music. We're gonna make things right with you even if we take a loss,'" opined DJ Akademiks.
DJ Akademiks cited two points that separated Drake's situation from Swift's. Firstly, Taylor reportedly has a larger fanbase than Drizzy. Secondly, Drizzy allegedly wasn't as transparent with his fans as the 1989 songstress. He explained how Taylor used to keep her fans informed of her battle with Big Machine Records and Braun, leading to their support. Drake, meanwhile, allegedly failed to connect with fans, as per the podcaster.
For the unversed, Taylor Swift and Scooter Braun started feuding when the latter bought Big Machine Records, the music label that recorded Swift's first six albums. As per Variety, in 2019, Braun purchased Taylor's first six albums for $300 million, leading to the songstress losing the right to her old songs.
In 2019, Taylor announced in a Tumblr post that she would re-record all tracks of the first six albums to establish ownership of the masters. On November 14, 2019, she claimed that Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun allegedly didn't allow her to perform her old songs at the 2019 AMAs. However, Borchetta and Braun denied all allegations.
The feud ended with Big Machine Records announcing that Taylor could own 100% of all her past catalogs.
Exploring Drake's second legal action against UMG
On November 25, Drake filed a second action in New York against UMG, accusing the music giant of including iHeart to allegedly boost Not Like Us' sales. Furthermore, his legal team alleged that UMG could have stopped the distribution of Not Like Us but chose to allegedly pool their resources to boost the popularity of the Kendrick Lamar chart-topper.
The new filing claimed that UMG allegedly "funneled payments" to iHeart as part of their “pay-to-play scheme” to inflate the song's streaming numbers artificially. The legal filing also alleged that UMG could've stopped promoting the song when they realized that K Dot was "falsely" accusing Drizzy of being a "certified pedophile," but they didn't.
“UMG could have refused to release or distribute the song or required the offending material to be edited and/or removed. But UMG chose to do the opposite. UMG designed, financed and then executed a plan to turn ‘Not Like Us’ into a viral mega-hit with the intent of using the spectacle of harm to Drake and his businesses to drive consumer hysteria and, of course, massive revenues,” claimed Drizzy's lawyers.
According to a report by Verge, Drake's lawyers alleged that UMG charged Spotify 30% less than their normal licensing rates in the Manhattan court filing on November 25.
"UMG charged Spotify licensing rates 30 percent lower than its usual licensing rates for “Not Like Us” in exchange for Spotify affirmatively recommending the song to users who are searching for other unrelated songs and artists," Drizzy's legal team alleged.
According to Billboard, his lawyers claimed the music giant paid social media influencers hefty amounts to promote the Kendrick Lamar song. Finally, they alleged that UMG paid Apple to program its voice assistant Siri to misdirect users and make them stream Not Like Us.
“Online sources reported that when users asked Siri to play the album ‘Certified Lover Boy’ by [Drizzy], Siri instead played ‘Not Like Us,’ which contains the lyric ‘certified ped*phile,’ an allegation against Drake,” claimed Drizzy's lawyers.
Although we don't have reactions from representatives of Spotify, Apple, or iHeart, a UMG spokesperson commented on the allegations (as quoted by Variety):
“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. 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," they said.
Although the feud between Kendrick Lamar and Drake seemingly ended after Drake's track The Heart Part 6, fans are expecting a new chapter to unfold in the infamous diss track fight with the filing of this pre-action petition.
