On Tuesday (Jan. 14), Variety revealed that Drake and his Frozen Moments company withdrew one of two highly publicized legal petitions against Universal Music Group (UMG) and Spotify. The filing, which took place in November 2024, accused those entities of using unfair practices to bolster the success of Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” which openly dissed the Toronto star and his crew.

“UMG did not rely on chance or even ordinary business practices,” Drake’s attorneys wrote at that time, adding that discounted fees, bots and paid influencers were all a part of the coordinated effort. “It instead launched a campaign to manipulate and saturate the streaming services and airwaves.” The petition included an order seeking “pre-action” disclosure of records and communication from all parties.

According to the publication, Drake met with both UMG and Spotify, the latter of which returned fire in a statement of their own. “The predicate of [the] petitioner’s entire request for discovery... is false,” Spotify’s legal team claimed. “[Our company] and UMG have never had any such arrangement.” The streaming platform had zero objection to the withdrawal and discontinuance, while Universal’s representatives reportedly “reserved its position.”

A second petition, which was submitted in Texas and included iHeartRadio, appears to still be active. REVOLT previously broke down how the latter document made claims of defamation. Lamar’s scathing chart-topper notably included lines like, “Certified lover boy? Certified pedophiles.”

“UMG... could have refused to release or distribute the song or required the offending material to be edited and/or removed,” it read. “But [they] chose to do the opposite. [They] designed, financed and then executed a plan to turn ‘Not Like Us’ into a viral mega-hit with the intent of using the spectacle of harm to Drake and his businesses to drive consumer hysteria and, of course, massive revenues. That plan succeeded, likely beyond UMG’s wildest expectations.”