In the middle of one constant royal struggle with hip hop icon Kendrick LamarCanadian rapper Drake is now claiming that their shared record label secretly gamed the system to artificially inflate his outspoken rival’s latest diss track, in which Lamar accuses the former child star of being a “certified pedophile,” while he suppresses his own music.

In an eye-popping lawsuit obtained by The independent, Drakeborn Aubrey Drake Graham, says Universal music group (UMG) used a network of bots, in conjunction with a so-called pay-to-play scheme, to “manipulate and saturate the streaming services and airwaves with Lamar’s smash hit”Not like us”, all to Drake’s detriment.

The filing accuses UMG, which has deals with both artists, of paying Spotify to recommend “Not Like Us” to users “looking for other unrelated songs and artists,” claiming it label also paid Apple to have Siri “Intentionally misleading” users into requesting songs from Drake’s catalog and serving up “Not Like Us” instead. UMG’s ploy, the filing states, created “the false impression that the Song was more popular than it actually was.” To make matters even trickier, Drake says in the filing that UMG has attempted to conceal its alleged support of Lamar at Drake’s expense “by firing employees associated with or perceived to be loyal to Drake.”

According to the filing, there is a petition from Drake and his company, Frozen Moments LLC, asking the court to order UMG and Spotify to preserve all relevant documents and communications ahead of an ongoing lawsuit – UMG has thus far ‘refused to engage’ with Drake on the matter, instead pointing the finger at Lamar and telling Drake to let Lamar go sue, not UMG.

But a source from Drake’s camp said Monday, shortly after the petition was filed with the New York State Supreme Court, that Drake is angry at UMG’s allegedly shady business practices, not Lamar or his lyrics. (Drake has hit back at Lamar and the Compton rapper, a domestic abuser and doubts about the paternity of his child.) The source further said The independentIf Drake is successful in tackling misconduct across the industry, the result could help protect other, lesser-known artists from future exploitation.

A spokesperson for UMG declined to comment. Spotify declined to comment. The attorneys representing Drake declined to comment for this story.

UMG was an early supporter of Spotify, signing a multi-year global licensing deal with the streaming giant in 2020, Drake’s court heard. It cites UMG’s financial reporting, which showed about $2.3 billion in Spotify revenue in 2023, accounting for almost 20 percent of the label’s revenue.

In May of this year, when streaming was so important to its bottom line, UMG “did not rely on chance, or even on ordinary business practices,” to achieve success with Lamar’s latest release, the documentation shows.

“Instead, it launched a campaign to manipulate and saturate the streaming services and airwaves with a song, ‘Not Like Us,’ in order to make that song go viral, including through the use of ‘bots’ and pay-to- play agreements,” the filings allege that UMG charged Spotify 30 percent less than usual licensing rates in exchange for Spotify recommending “Not Like Us” to “users looking for other non- related numbers and artists” pushes.

“Neither UMG nor Spotify disclosed that Spotify received any compensation in exchange for recommending the song,” the filing states, alleging such practices violate the Communications Act of 1934.

In June, a “whistleblower” revealed on a podcast that Lamar’s label paid him to set up a bot network that would generate 30 million streams on Spotify in the first few days after the May 3 release of “Not Like Us.” the filing said. The leaker claimed that he was promised a cash payment plus a percentage of the song’s sales in exchange for his help. The filing states that UMG also paid to quietly “inflate” the views of Lamar’s “Not Like Us” video, paid traditional radio stations for additional airplay, and claims that the alleged “under-the-table” streaming deals of the label extend beyond Spotify.

“Online sources reported that when users asked Siri to play the album ‘Certified Loverboy’ by artist Aubrey Drake Graham d/b/a Drake, Siri instead played ‘Not Like Us’, which contains the lyrics ‘certified pedophile’ , an accusation against Drake,” the filing said.

UMG also paid social media influencers to “promote and endorse” Lamar’s song without either party disclosing the financial arrangement, according to the filing, which states that the arrangement generated nearly 900 million streams on Spotify for ‘Not Like Us,’ a record for the most streams ever in a single day for a hip-hop song and the most streamed diss song in Spotify history. The song was also a huge hit at radio and became the best-selling rap song of 2024, the filing said. The motivation behind UMG’s “plans,” according to Drake’s filing, was solely financial. It is claimed that the colossal success of ‘Not Like Us’ has in turn reduced sales of Lamar’s back catalogue, making UMG even more money.

Drake’s filing even claims that he has “received information that UMG has taken steps in an apparent attempt to conceal its plans, including, but not limited to, firing employees associated with or believed to be loyal to Drake .”

“Streaming and licensing are a zero-sum game,” the filing concludes. “Every time a song ‘breaks through’ it means another artist doesn’t. UMG’s choice to saturate the music market with ‘Not Like Us’ comes at the expense of other artists, such as Drake.”

Last month, nu-metal band Limp Bizkit has sued UMGclaiming the label hasn’t paid them despite their songs being streamed more than half a billion times.

Drake accuses UMG and Spotify of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), as well as the NY Deceptive Business Act and the NY False Advertising Act.