While there is no Round 2 when it comes to the Kendrick Lamar and Drake beef, there is certainly another chapter to the latter's changing relationship with the music industry. Now, it's in the form of a legal petition accusing Universal Music Group and Spotify of illegally and artificially boosting the sales numbers of "Not Like Us" through payola practices and botting. It's obviously been an incredibly controversial move in hip-hop discourse, and also an ominously unprecedented choice that left many fans wondering what could happen next. DJ Akademiks is quite skeptical of this petition's success, as even if it does happen, it could come at a massive cost.
During his most recent livestream, the media personality posited that Drake's petition could change the music industry forever, as it would have to meet the standards of this hypothetically landmark case. However, he thinks that the more likely scenario is that Universal Music Group will basically make an example out of the 6ix God and hand down severe punishment. This not only applies in court, per DJ Akademiks' assessment, but also when it comes to their treatment of Drizzy as an artist.
DJ Akademiks Warns Drake
For example, Ak posited that Drake should release his upcoming collab album with PARTYNEXTDOOR via his independent "100 GIGS" venture rather than through Universal Music Group, as they could sabotage it. He also brought up multiple other examples of rappers and artists like Kanye West, Diddy, and 50 Cent eventually facing industry pushback for their transgressions against the machine. Of course, those are wildly different cases, but you get the idea. In fact, DJ Akademiks proposed that the only celebrities who successfully forced the machine to meet their terms were Taylor Swift and Dave Chappelle, and that everyone else became a martyr to some degree.
Finally, Akademiks spoke on how this is a particularly big move because it's not towards just any division or executive, but rather the highest higher-ups at Universal Music Group. He thinks that this will cause an especially damaging disaster for Drake. But at the end of the day, neither DJ Akademiks nor anyone else's knowledge and inferences can predict what will happen for sure.