Drake Sues Universal--What's His Angle?

Hey, this is Wendy Day from Rap Coalition, and this is Monday, November 25th, and it's been an incredibly interesting day in the music industry. Um, your boy Drake filed suit against Universal Music Group today for Not Like Us. And his complaint was that Universal used payola tactics for radio, for streaming, and for boosting blog coverage on Not Like Us, which gave Kendrick an unfair advantage over the song. And at first I thought he was just on some bitch shit. Because it just seemed petty, right? You got slaughtered in a battle and you're mad because you got spanked by a lyricist, so you filed suit. So I pulled a copy of the, the suit, and first of all, it's not a lawsuit, it's a petition, which Billboard did say it was. They, they, they said he sued, but But he didn't sue. It's a petition, and it's a petition because he wants disclosure from Universal, which apparently is his distribution company, or was till he fucking filed this, and Spotify. And what he's saying is that He quotes a bunch of different stuff that has happened in the music industry, um, not just in 2024 this year, but he also went back to 2006 and 2020 when there was Radio Paola scandals in the music industry and talked about, um, Universal's— I'm trying to say this carefully— their alleged complicity in Paola. They paid a fine, but I don't think they ever took responsibility for Paola. I think it just turned into a fine instead of a civil or a criminal lawsuit. But the thing about this that strikes me is that Drake's career was built on the same music industry promotional tactics that are still in place today, allegedly. So in this petition, he's saying that Spotify and Universal have had a relationship, that Universal has ownership in Spotify. We all know that. He was talking about, um, how beneficial this is financially to Universal Music Group. But here's what's interesting to me. Look at all of these, and I'm talking about this stuff in here. Look at all of these press releases and articles that he quotes all through his petition. Like, if I were going to write a thesis on the music business, I could just use this on how promotion works in music. I could— or allegedly works in music— I could use this. So let me state as I'm going through this that I am not a Drake fan. Those of you who know me really well know this, but I'm not really a Kendrick fan either. I'm a fan of the culture. I'm a fan of what Kendrick brings to the culture. I like his music. I like this new album, but he's not an artist that I listen to a lot. I've listened to him more than I've listened to Drake. I've heard Drake's music more than I've heard Kendrick's music because Drake's music is out and about. As I'm moving around in the world, I hear Drake's music playing in stores, in clubs, you know, cars driving past. He is a commercial recording artist, and absolutely hands down one of the biggest, if not the biggest. I think The Weeknd was the biggest this year. Um, I'm just off the phone with my radio guys because I want to know what they think of this. They saw the press, but they didn't read the actual petition. I sent it to them. Because they should really see this. So he's saying that Universal did not allow this song to break organically. And by this song, I'm talking about Not Like Us, right? By the way, great, great, great song. I'll even go as far as to say it is Kendrick's first commercially viable pop hit single, right? It's putting him on the, on the radio map. The— and he's been to radio, don't get me wrong, but I don't think he's ever made it past the top 10. I could be wrong. Like I said, I'm not really a Kendrick fan. I don't really follow him. I don't really follow Drake, but I'm following this because this is deep, okay? Um, and just so you know he talks about Interscope working this record. Um, since, since that record came out, I believe that Universal restructured, and Kendrick Lamar's album that just dropped this past Friday, 4 days ago, uh, 3 days ago, was put out by Capitol, right? But it appears to be, if the information in this petition is accurate, it appears to be a licensing deal. Okay, so here's where you're talk— here's where we see him talking about licensing of Not Like Us. He's saying that Spotify charged licensing rates of 30% lower than they normally charge in exchange for them leaning on this record in playlists, etc. Um, I'm guessing what he's referring to is the ads that are offered to anybody by Spotify where you get paid a little bit less. He's alleging more than that. He's alleging that Universal went and did a side deal with Spotify directly for this record, and he's also saying that by Not Like Us being at the top of all the charts and the top of all the radio, um, play, and at the top of blogs, etc., it didn't leave any room for any other artist to get that high on the charts. Therefore, Universal doing all of this, um, what he's calling underhanded— my word, not his— tactics that he could not benefit for his company. So he's claiming that they cost him money by their payola tactics and that there were whistleblowers involved. And he's claiming in here that people at Interscope got fired because they were Drake-friendly as opposed to Kendrick-friendly. I find that really hard to believe. And that's going to be really hard to prove. I would imagine. I'm not a lawyer. Maybe I'm missing something, but it's going to be very hard to prove that somebody got fired because they preferred Drake over any other artist on the label. Right. But he's going through here talking about using similar tactics with other streaming service services. He is alleging, and this is big. And I don't even know how you would do this, but he's alleging— and I'm not saying he's wrong, I'm just saying he is alleging in this lawsuit that you— that Universal went in and approved payments to Apple to have its Siri, um, assistant purposely misdirect anybody that wanted to hear Certified Lover Boy to the song Not Like Us. And he's saying that they were charged for that. He's also saying that somebody went in and paid, uh, somebody $5,000 for extra bot streams on, um, on, uh, Not Like Us. So he goes into a little bit of the history of Paola. This is Radio Paola. This is the 2006 case where Universal agreed to pay $12 million in a settlement with um, the Attorney General for pay for play. That was Elliot Spitzer. I don't know if you guys remember that. I don't know if you go back this far. It was 18 years ago. And then here's another case in February of 2020, and that was right at the beginning of COVID COVID, where, um, payola allegedly happened again. He's also talking about Universal paying NFR Podcast, which has 300,000 subscribers on YouTube, to promote Not Like Us and how it hit their Twitter. Here's an example of the Twitter post that they made, or X post that they made, saying that Not Like Us becomes the fastest rap song to reach 300 million streams. So I'm kind of just going through showing you what all the whining is. I suggest that you guys pull this and read it for yourselves. Because it's fascinating and it's going to be very interesting in a WWE way to watch how this plays out because he is accusing the largest record company in the world of payola on many different platforms in many different ways at a time when his rival, for lack of a better word, Kendrick Lamar just dropped 3 days ago and needs to market and promote his music. So if they're being accused of radio payola, would they take a chance on taking a Kendrick song to radio while all of the eyes of all the, um, people that could slap them on the wrist might be watching? I'm watching. I have no intention of slapping them on the wrist. I like this shit. Like, I like music industry promotion. And at our company, we use similar tactics to the major labels to promote our artists, and we have access to everything that they have. The difference is we don't buy fake streams or bot streams because it fucks up the algorithm. I guess it doesn't when you're getting 76 million streams in a 7-day period. But when you're a smaller artist and you're not getting that many streams, all of the bot streams are going to falsely flag your account and it's going to attract more Brazilian or Indonesian or Turkish streamers as opposed to real people in the United States that can actually go to your show buy a ticket, buy your merch. You want to monetize your artist. You don't want to just have numbers. And it's crazy to me anytime somebody says to me, I need to increase my numbers. No, you need to increase your fan base and, and let the numbers grow based on real people, not based on buying bots. Okay, he's talking about how, um, 'Not Like Us' stayed at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, how many times it played, where the video appeared from July 4th to August 8th. And he's, he's alleging this because he's saying because it was at number 1, nobody else could get to number 1. There wasn't room for him, who was supposedly working his record legitimately. Without payola, without bots. And those of you that work in the music industry are laughing like hell right now because some of you are probably questioning, was Drake's career built doing this exact same thing that he, as a label owner now, is railing against? I don't know if that's the case or not. But I have my suspicions. Okay, so here, more complaints. And again, you guys got to read this. So I'm thinking to myself, well, what's in it for Universal? Because these songs are licensed. Drake has a licensing deal, Kendrick has a licensing deal. They're not owned by Universal. And by the way, they both have deals through Universal, but they're not ownership deals. Through Universal anymore, right? So they're like licensing or distribution deals, if you will, and they probably pay for services. And I'm assuming— I don't know either of the deals. I didn't do either of their deals. I haven't talked to anybody that has done their deals. I haven't looked at their deals. I'm just basing this on what I know from doing deals. And those of you who know me know that I've done a lot of deals out there, even recently. I just don't talk about them because I don't want to be known anymore as the chick that did the Cash Money deal. That's not who I am. I did their deal, but I'm so much more than some chick that does a deal with a major label. So what, what Drake is alleging here in this section, if you're reading it, is that the incentive is for John Janick to get a bonus at the end of the year for Interscope's money raising. And he's saying that his bonus is 90% based on the financial success of Interscope and 10% on the success of UMG. And since Drake is not coming through the Interscope side, or now the Capitol side of, of, um, Universal, he's coming through the Republic side. Therefore, they're competing and he can't win. That's what he's alleging. If I'm reading this correctly. I think I am. Okay, here it is. So streaming and licensing is a zero-sum game. Every time a song breaks through, it means another artist does not. UMG's choice to saturate the music market with Not Like Us comes at the expense of other artists like Drake. And now he's saying he suffered economic harm as a result of UMG's scheme. It's also talking here, his company's called Frozen Moments. That's the company that he is signed to. He's not signed to OVO, and it's registered in the state of Florida. Um, that stopped me a little bit when I was reading this. The only thing I can figure, and I would need to ask a Florida attorney, but there's no state taxes in Florida, so perhaps that's why his company is registered in the state of Florida. I don't know. I'm not on his team. I don't know anybody on his team. I'm not all up in his business. So it's saying that he has the right to sue in New York because UMG is based there. Well, they're based in, um, they're based outside of the country, but they have offices where they do business in New York, as does Spotify. They're in One World Trade Center or Four World Trade Center. There it is, Four World Trade Center off a Greenwich Street. So he's saying that he has the right to sue them, because when you sue somebody— and again, this is a petition, not a lawsuit— he wants information. He's not actually, he's not actually saying, I'm suing you. He's saying, I need information, and when I get that information, my plan is to sue. This is called leverage. This is when you want somebody, something from somebody, and you want to put a gun to their head. But here's that wonderful word, RICO. You guys seeing this? So he's saying that they have used deceptive business and they have, um, used false advertising because they're buying it instead of having it come naturally. They're buying— it's payola as opposed to promotion. And he's saying it's a civil RICO because it's wire fraud, mail fraud, bribery, and hiring of third parties to reduce fees to Spotify in addition for— as in, as if they're in cahoots. Okay, that's what this means. He's also implying that he knows exactly who to call if he has to go to court. He's not naming them here, but he's saying there are two people that he has that he can bring to court if he has to. So this is a really big gun to put to a company's head because it could— if it's true, and we don't know that it is, but if it's true it could topple the way marketing and promotion is done in the music business in 2024 and '25. Regardless, this is going to change some shit. He goes on to say that he has tried to negotiate with them for damages, meaning get money from them, and they said no. If you're, if you're not happy, go sue Kendrick, don't sue us. And he's saying, well, it's not Kendrick's fault, it's your fault. You guys are the ones that marketed and promoted, not like us, so therefore it's on you. And then here's the signature of his lawyers. These are the— this is the, the two lawyers, Michael Gottlieb, Merle Gavirnsky. I don't know either of them. And then here's Drake's affidavit and signature saying, 'I approve this petition,' and there's nothing attached to it to prove anything that he's alleged in here. But if I were a record label that was marketing and promoting music, even if I wasn't doing anything illegal, this would make me really nervous because it's going to make folks at the government, the Alphabet boys, take a look in and see what's really going on in the music industry. And even if you're operating legally— and they may or may not be— but even if you're operating legally, the last thing you want is somebody all up in your business double-checking every fucking email, right? So the last thing he's accusing them of is false advertising, because he's saying if you know that you're buying the success and you're artificially inflating it by its own manipulation, then saying that somebody is the number one artist or is the fastest artist to get to number one ever, or whatever, the fastest streaming artist in 24 hours, or whatever it was that they said Kendrick was, it hurts people because it's deceptive and people depend on corporations to tell the truth. So this is all really interesting and we're going to see how this shakes out. My guess is that he is looking for a payday, that he is looking to sue Um, only as a threat so that he can negotiate himself out. Um, I spoke to one of my friends at radio today about this and got his whole impression of this, and he and I are of the opinion that Drake would like to be at Warner Brothers where OVO is as opposed to Universal. I don't know why. Maybe there was a falling out. Maybe they didn't promote his responses to the diss records as hard as they did Kendrick. Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. Um, Kendrick spanked him. I'm just saying, Kendrick spanked him. So it's looking like he's being petty But I don't, I don't think this is driven by petty. I mean, maybe a little bit, maybe a little bit driven by petty, but I think he's trying to get Universal to make a move because you don't sue your partner. How do you sue your partner and then expect to be treated nicely? It's like suing your parents and, and then going to the Thanksgiving table and being like, hi everybody, happy holidays. It's not going to be a good dinner. You just sued your parents and you're sitting down with them at a table. They're going to feel some kind of way. And that's what this is. This is somebody, an artist, inarguably one of the biggest artists in the world, suing his partner distribution company and saying that they're shady and fraudulent is basically allegedly what he's saying. I'm anxious to see how this plays out. This is interesting. This is— we are the WWE. I, I, I don't know when hip-hop became this. Like, it's, it's, it's a soap opera. It's a telenovela. It's just, it's crazy. Okay guys, just wanted to share with you what I know.