Spotify Fires Back at Drake’s Claim That It Illegally Boosted Streams of “Not Like Us”

Spotify has officially entered the Drake–Kendrick Lamar beef group chat.

The top music streamer responded to Drake’s claim that the company inflated the streams of Lamar’s diss song aimed at him on Friday in a new filing, saying: “UMG and Spotify have never had any arrangement in which UMG charged Spotify licensing rates 30 percent lower than its usual licensing rates for ‘Not Like Us’ in exchange for Spotify affirmatively recommending [‘Not Like Us]’, including ‘to users who are searching for other songs and artists.’”

“The Petition claims that an unidentified individual reported on a podcast that he used bots to achieve 30,000,000 streams on Spotify in the first days of the release of ‘Not Like Us.’ Spotify found no evidence to substantiate this claim,” the streamer continued in its opposition papers.

Later Friday, Drake’s legal team responded with: “It is not surprising that Spotify is trying to distance themselves from UMG’s allegedly manipulative practices to artificially inflate streaming numbers on behalf of one of its other artists. If Spotify and UMG have nothing to hide then they should be perfectly fine complying with this basic discovery request.”

Spotify’s filing comes a month after Drake’s Frozen Moments company filed a petition in a New York court and alleged that Spotify inflated the streams of “Not Like Us” and that UMG — the parent label both rappers are signed to — “launched a campaign to manipulate and saturate the streaming services and airwaves with a song, ‘Not Like Us,’ in order to make that song go viral, including by using ‘bots’ and pay-to-play agreements.”

“Spotify has no economic incentive for users to stream ‘Not Like Us” over any of Drake’s tracks. Only one of Spotify for Artists’ tools, Marquee, was purchased on behalf of the song, for €500 to promote the track in France. Marquee is a visual ad that is disclosed to users as a Sponsored Recommendation,” a spokesperson for Spotify said.

Quickly after Drake’s claim, UMG said that the allegations were “offensive and untrue.” Drake is signed to UMG subsidiary Republic Records, while Lamar is signed to UMG’s Interscope Records. The petition came days after Lamar released the surprise album GNX and months before he will headline the Super Bowl halftime show.

In its filing, Spotify says it “invests heavily in automated and manual reviews to prevent, detect, and mitigate the impact of artificial streaming on our platform. When we identify attempted stream manipulation, we take action that may include removing streaming numbers, withholding royalties and charging penalty fees. Confirmed and suspected artificial streams are also removed from our chart calculations. This helps us to protect royalty payouts for honest, hardworking artists.”

Lamar’s “Not Like Us” is one of the year’s biggest hits. It spent two weeks on top of the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 chart; it spent 20 at No. 1 on the Hot rap songs chart. The song is nominated for five Grammy Awards, including song and record of the year. It has become an international, cultural anthem and more than a diss track.

Lamar released the anthemic West Coast banger in May after the rappers’ feud resurfaced in March. After going back and forth with diss songs, Lamar dropped “Not Like Us,” calling Drake a pedophile and accusing him of appropriating Black culture. The upbeat DJ Mustard-produced track set streaming records and spectators crowned Lamar the winner of the battle as a result. The beef originated in 2013 when Lamar — who formerly collaborated with Drake and opened for him on tour — sent jabs to 11 of his contemporaries through his guest verse on Big Sean’s “Control.”