“Maths not adding up”- Netizens react as DJ Akademiks claims Kendrick Lamar lost 1B streams while Drake’s stayed the same after Spotify’s bot purge

DJ Akademiks has alleged that Kendrick Lamar lost over 1 billion streams following Spotify's bot purge. He added that Drake's numbers remained relatively the same after the process.

Spotify has taken a big stand against bots this year and has been removing them on a large scale. On Monday, September 1, DJ Akademiks shared a post on his X (formerly Twitter) account. It showed the most-streamed rappers on Spotify from February and August, as listed by Hip Hop All Day.

Kendrick, notably, saw a drop of almost a billion streams in these six months, as per the report. Drake's numbers, meanwhile, remained exactly the same. DJ Akademiks wrote in the post:

"Kendrick Lamar has lost -1,000,029,000 streams while Drake’s numbers stayed the same. Spotify have also announced they’re doing another bot purge after doing multiple this year. Notice how everyone’s numbers stayed relatively the same and only one major artist is decreasing."

Fans online have reacted to this as one X user wrote:

"Maths not adding up"

(ʘ‿ʘ)

@kabeiir

@AkademiksTV Maths not adding up

Others wrote,

REBELMIND™

@rebelmindx

@AkademiksTV No matter how you feel about Kendrick, love him or hate him, losing 1billion streams in the span of 6 months is pretty crazy.

Dom

@Underrated_Dom

@AkademiksTV Losing a billion stream is career ending. They literally boosted this man up to troll and try to take out the GOAT and failed.

Many users, however, pointed out that Kendrick's rise in numbers at the start of the year could be because of his Super Bowl Halftime Show in February. One user tweeted:

Lucxd

@Damien_NightXV

@AkademiksTV Wow it's almost as if his numbers are balancing out after getting massive exposure at the beginning of the year like winning a grammy and performing at the super bowl, y'know something the rest didnt have🤯😮

Burner account

@TomBrad48246497

@AkademiksTV Nah February was the Super Bowl and he was the headliner. I don’t even like his a*s but of course his numbers gon explode that month

Shogun Hip Hop and Gaming media

@ShogunHipHopM

@AkademiksTV another day another false a*s fake narrative post 😴

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More about Spotify's bot purge as DJ Akademiks accuses Kendrick Lamar of using bots and fake streams

67th GRAMMY Awards - Press Room (Image Source: Getty)

Spotify has doubled down on its efforts to stop fake streams and bots from its platform this year. While it hasn't revealed the artists or projects it has worked on the most, the company has taken down bots across its platform.

A Spotify spokesperson stated in April this year (h/t Hot New Hip Hop):

“Spotify’s efforts to detect and prevent artificial streaming are long-standing, platform-wide, and genre-agnostic. Spotify invests heavily in automated and manual reviews to prevent, detect, and mitigate the impact of artificial streaming on our platform."

The spokesperson further stated:

"When we identify stream manipulation, we take action that includes removing streaming numbers and withholding royalties. Bad actors are always evolving, so our dedicated fraud prevention team is always working to identify new trends and methods used to game the system.”

While there has been no real evidence of any wrongdoing, DJ Akademiks has accused Kendrick Lamar of using bots to inflate his streaming numbers. The renowned Drake supporter also claimed that the Canadian rapper is the only "authentic artist," as he wrote in an X post on Monday:

"Drake is the only authentic artist in the game right now with authentic streams that are not botted. Drake has never been affected from any Spotify bot removal I can’t say the same for Kendrick, SZA or Doechii."

Akademiks TV

@AkademiksTV

Drake is the only authentic artist in the game right now with authentic streams that are not botted. Drake has never been affected from any Spotify bot removal I can’t say the same for Kendrick, SZA or Doechii.

Notably, Drake had filed a legal petition, claiming that Universal Music Group (UMG) and Spotify inflated the numbers of Kendrick's diss track, Not Like Us. UMG vehemently denied these allegations while Spotify filed an opposition motion.

Meanwhile, as per Variety, Drizzy and his team withdrew this legal petition in January this year following a meeting with Spotify's officials.

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