Kendrick Lamar’s diss track turned chart-topping hit “Not Like Us” has hit 1 billion streams on Spotify.
The critically acclaimed song, released amid an ongoing feud with rapper Drake, is the latest to join Spotify’s Billions Club, which marks the milestone of surpassing 1 billion streams on the service. Other members of the exclusive club include The Weeknd, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Billie Eilish and Tyler the Creator.
Lamar’s “Not Like Us” is one of several diss tracks the rapper released against the Certified Lover Boy artist. Lamar dropped “euphoria” a few days before another track “meet the grahams,” which was released the day before “Not Like Us.”
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The song was one of 2024’s biggest hits, spending two weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 and 20 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot Rap Songs chart. The song is nominated for five Grammy Awards, including song and record of the year. It transcended a simple diss track, becoming an international and cultural anthem.
“Not Like Us” is at the center of a defamation suit from Drake against Universal Music Group, the parent record label he and Lamar are both signed to. The new lawsuit claims UMG “approved, published and launched a campaign to create a viral hit out of a rap track” that was “intended to convey the specific, unmistakable and false factual allegation that Drake is a criminal pedophile, and to suggest that the public should resort to vigilante justice in response.”
In November, Drake’s Frozen Moments company filed a petition in a New York court alleging that UMG “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 by using ‘bots’ and pay-to-play agreements.” Both Spotify and UMG refuted the claims, with the record label saying the allegations were “offensive and untrue.”
“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 streamer said in a statement following the petition.
