Hollywood rapper Drake’s company has filed an appeal against the Universal Music Group for fabricating the success of Kendrick Lamar’s song Not Like Us.
As per the reports, the Frozen Moments LLC filed a 17-page petition, in a Manhattan court on Monday, Nov. 25.
The plea read, “the record Label (UMG) launched a campaign to manipulate and saturate the streaming services and airwaves with Not Like Us to make that song go viral, including by using bots and pay-to-play agreements.”
Moreover, the 38-year-old’s advocates claimed that the UMG gave 30% concession to Spotify on licensing rates for recommending the respective song to the users searching for “unrelated” songs and artists.
A podcaster also opened up that Interscope paid $2,500 to the platform through third parties, and asked them ‘to use bots’ to help in gaining 30 million streams.
Later, the streaming platform took Lamar’s single to an optimum 300 million streams, during the first 35 days.
Frozen Moments asserts that the UMG compensated the radio stations to play the soundtrack. The prosecutors remarked that the alleged conduct is known as ‘payola’ and is prohibited by the Communications Act of 1934.
On the contrary, while conversing with People, UMG shared that: “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,” the company added.
For the unknown, Kendrick Lamar’s Not Like Us has acquired 900 million Spotify streams till now, marking a history on the platform.
