Last month, Drake filed a pre-action petition against UMG and Spotify, accusing the companies of artificially boosting Kendrick Lamar's hit diss track "Not Like Us." Earlier this week, Spotify finally issued a response. “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 filing reads in part. “Spotify has no economic incentive for users to stream ‘Not Like Us” over any of Drake’s tracks."
Spotify also criticized Drake's decision to move forward with a pre-action petition instead of a lawsuit, calling it an alleged “subversion of the normal judicial process." The Toronto rapper's team quickly fired back. “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," they wrote.
Joe Budden Reacts To Spotify's Response To Drake Allegations
Now, Joe Budden has weighed in on the debacle during an episode of his podcast, revealing what he thinks could come of it. "Drake's still making music, dog. So they've still got to have some sort of a business relationship I think," his co-host Ish said. Budden disagreed, arguing that if he wanted to, Drake could always choose to remove his music from Spotify altogether like other artists have in the past.
"I don't know if that's certain like it once had to be," Budden told Ish. "Remember when all of them white people was taking their music off Spotify cuz Rogan said some sh*t or something? I want to leave that option for the brothers too, he don't have to have his sh*t over there [...] Once you do the lawsuit, it makes me think that you're ready."
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