Spotify Refutes Claims By Drake That Kendrick Lamar’s Streams Were Artificially Inflated.

Spotify Technology has stepped out to refute claims by Drake that the streaming platform tampered with the streaming numbers for his beefing partner Kendrick Lamar’s hit, “Not Like Us”.

According to legal papers presented by the company to New York’s state supreme court, Spotify has clarified that claims by the Canadian artist are baseless and lack no evidence to substantiate.

“Contrary to the allegations in the petition, UMG and Spotify have never had any arrangement of such kind,” read part of the statement.

“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,” Spotify further stated.

Spotify’s attention seems to have been caught by the allegations of use of bots and their statement even though it was a response to Drake’s court filings, was particularly disputing the bot allegations.

Drake Filed Petition Last Month

Spotify’s response is the first official statement from the company since last month when Drake, through his company Frozen Moments, filed a petition alleging that Spotify and UMG collaborated to boost Lamar’s streaming numbers.

According to the papers filed by Drake’s attorneys, Spotify manipulated the streaming services and airwaves in favour of Lamar’s diss track and not Drake’s.

Part of the filling read, “UMG did not rely on chance, or even ordinary business practices. It instead launched a campaign to manipulate and saturate the streaming services and airwaves.”

The track whose streaming numbers are in contention is Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us,” which was somehow his hardest shot at Drake in the highly publicized beef between the two.

The beef saw the two artists exchange a series of fiery diss tracks over the summer.

UMG, Drake And Kendrick Lamar

Remember, Drake filed another petition in Texas accusing UMG of defaming him by releasing a track that accused him of being a ‘sex predator.’

UMG at the time of this writing has not filed a response in court but issued a statement at the time terming Drake’s allegations as “offensive and untrue.”

This latest series of legal battles is even becoming more messy because the two artists (Drake and Lamar) have spent most of their careers working with UMG.

It’s worth noting though that none of the artists is directly signed under UMG though they work with the music corporation through their own companies.