...I don't want to say that this is the most Jewish thing Drake has done during this beef...but this is the MOST Jewish thing Drake has done during this beef!!!
Drake accuses streaming platforms of helping Kendrick Lamar in their rap beef, Elon Musk is furious over Gavin Newsom’s electric vehicles plan, and “60 Minutes” explores exploitation for AI
www.msnbc.com
Drake lawsuits blame Big Tech for the L he took from Kendrick Lamar’s lyrical beatdown
Drake accuses streaming platforms of helping Kendrick Lamar in their rap beef, Elon Musk is furious over Gavin Newsom’s electric vehicles plan, and “60 Minutes” explores exploitation for AI
Nov. 26, 2024, 10:32 PM UTC
By
Ja'han Jones
Happy Tuesday. Here’s your Tuesday Tech Drop, a curated list of the past week’s top stories from the intersection of politics and the all-inclusive world of technology.
Drake brings lawyers to a rap battle
Rapper Drake — who once dismissed artists who take legal action with the lyric, “a cease-and-desist is for hoes” — seems to have had a change of heart after taking a lyrical drubbing from Pulitzer-winning rapper Kendrick Lamar this summer.
In a petition filed Monday in New York, Drake launched a legal attack against his own record label, Universal Music Group, and Spotify, which he accuses of harming him by allegedly boosting Lamar’s song
“They Not Like Us,” a scathing diss track aimed at Drake and his associates. (Lamar is also signed to UMG.)
Drake’s petition, which seeks information to support a potential lawsuit, claims that UMG and Spotify engaged in a high-tech “scheme” using bots, reduced licensing fees and paid influencers to boost the song illegally.
A second petition, filed in Texas, alleges UMG engaged in a pay-for-play scheme with iHeartMedia to help boost the song, which the petition also claims defamed Drake.
UMG provided NBC News with a pretty scathing response to the first suit:
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.”
Spotify declined to comment Tuesday to NBC News, but its website says the platform has
practices in place to prevent artificial streaming.
As you might imagine, Drake resorting to the courts for help in the midst of a rap beef has been met with some
pretty savage mockery. After all, Drake himself has put
baseless claims about other artists,
including Lamar, in his tracks, and he’s used social media influencers
to hype his music. And he’s also taken advantage of
shifts in the infrastructure of the music industry throughout his career, so in some ways, it seems Drake is raging against the machine that made him.
Now it looks like a messy legal battle is on the horizon, which could shake loose all sorts of details about the inner workings of the music industry. One thing is for certain: Drake has made history as the first rapper to take legal action against Big Tech for the L he took during a beef.