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    Did UMG Just Warn Drake? DJ Akademiks Breaks Down Kendrick’s Wins & The Weeknd’s Grammy Moment

    The 2025 Grammys have long since passed, but aftershocks produced in the hip-hop universe have yet to abate. There was a dominating performance during the ceremony courtesy of Kendrick Lamar, who won five Grammys, including both a win for both Record and Song of the Year for Not Like Us, a track universally regarded as a shot at Drake. There was a big name in attendance, and a big name in performance, courtesy of a return to the Grammys stage for a boycott in years gone by for The Weeknd.

    This series of events encouraged DJ Akademiks to wonder whether Universal Music Group (UMG), both Kendrick and The Weeknd’s record label, engineered a calculated move in taking down Drake. With relations between label and rapper under tension, could this have been a shot over UMG’s bow?

    Drake’s fallout with the Grammys, nevertheless, isn’t new. He boycotted them ever since 2021, protesting them for being out of touch when After Hours and its biggest single, Blinding Lights, saw no nod. His disdain for the institution manifested when, in 2022, he withdrew his own nominations. In a long-standing feud with Kendrick Lamar, meanwhile, both have exchanged blows, with Not Like Us being one of the most direct shots yet taken.

    The situation took an even larger sensational hue when a video of UMG head Lucian Grainge and hip-hop icon Dr. Dre partying with Kendrick over his wins at the Grammys recently went virally. Akademiks mentioned it as a real sign that UMG is shifting allegiances and moving towards a future in which its future no longer involves a role for Drake.

    During a recent streaming session, no punches were pulled for DJ Akademiks. In his estimation, UMG played a smart move with its manipulation of the Grammys, re-established its position in its field and subtly placed Drake out of contention in the bargain. In Akademiks’ estimation, The Weeknd’s eleventh-hour performance and Lamar’s sweeps of wins were calculated to have UMG in a position of having its say in career success, even for a superstar in Drake.

    “If Drake don’t respond and say, ‘UMG just told me fck you and fck off,’ then he’s delusional,” insisted Akademiks. “And then I go a little deeper and say that Lucian Grainge wins in any case, in that Kendrick Lamar and Drake both report to him.”

    The most underhanded of Akademiks’ claims involves claims of UMG faking streaming statistics in a desperate try to make Not Like Us go record successful. Apparently, the label reduced licensing payments and leveraged bot-enforced streaming spikes in a try to make the record go viral on streaming platforms such as Spotify. There even existed claims that one performed totally disparate performers’ search inexplicably redirected visitors to Kendrick’s record of dis, adding to suspicions of manipulation in the field.

    Drake has not minced any words in taking such actions. In January 2025, he sued UMG, holding the label responsible for unfairly supporting Lamar’s diss track at Drizae’s expense. In the view of his representatives, UMG’s actions in playlists, terms of licensing, and artificial inflation of streaming placed an unbalanced platform, in a manner of speaking, in putting Kendrick’s record in a position of becoming an industry sensation at Drizae’s expense.

    The lawsuit further alleged that UMG, in concert with big streaming platforms, could have intentionally suppressed releases of Drake’s work in preference for Kendrick’s work. There are larger implications in terms of record labels’ sway over consumption of digital music and whether streaming totals can become manipulated in an attempt to sway public opinion.

    The ongoing dispute between UMG and Drake is a reflection of a deeper issue in record label society: How much control can big labels have over an artist’s career? In case Akademiks’ claims have any basis in reality, then this could mark a sea change in terms of how record labels and streaming platforms have to manage relations with artists. Drake has been a behemoth in music for a long time, but in case UMG is actually dropping him, then in the future, his career can be totally reworked. With no label and no strategical marketing, even a superstar can struggle to maintain a position in an ever-evolving marketplace.

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