In the latest chapter of hip-hop’s most combustible beef, Drake is looking to bring his battle out of the charts and into a courtroom by blasting a man he says helped fix the game for Kendrick Lamar, with the help of some creative accounting.
Court filings show that Drake has pointed the finger at Kojo Menne Asamoah as the man who’s accused of working the magic behind the scenes to fake the rise of Kendrick’s scathing diss track “Not Like Us.” The Toronto rapper alleges that Asamoah orchestrated out-of-the-spotlight payments that were made by Universal Music Group (UMG) exec Ramon Alvarez-Smikle to boost the track through bots or third-party services.
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Drake’s lawyers already dropped $75,000 in the hunt for Asamoah, crisscrossing California and Maryland to find him. It’s been a wild goose chase, from his last known addresses to various businesses and even his parents’ place. They even traced a Range Rover associated with him and sent off emails in an attempt to get in touch.
Now, unable to get lucky serving him the old-school way, Drake is asking the court to allow him to serve the warrant by certified mail and email.
At the heart of that lawsuit is a stark claim: that UMG hatched a plot to not simply game a song into success, but to take down a rival. Drake alleges that the company employed unscrupulous methods to push “Not Like Us,” a song that he says maliciously depicts him as a child molester, and threatened his safety as well as that of his family, in the process.
The filing goes so far as to nod at real-world repercussions. After the song dropped, a shooting broke out outside of Drake’s house. He also claims to have been threatened with violence against people he loves, which his legal team links directly to the song’s hyped promotion.
It’s not just the names and the headlines Drake is chasing; he’s getting deep with it. A judge has given him access to UMG’s internal files, which will include Kendrick Lamar’s contracts and information on executive compensation. He claims the label not only promoted the song but also made bank, noting Kendrick’s Super Bowl performance and Grammy wins as evidence of how “Not Like Us” got huge, potentially prodded by label manipulation.
So far, the court hasn’t decided if Drake can effect service on Asamoah through another method, but the legal process is certainly well under way.
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