Call me schizophrenic, but the whole beef was manufactured to bring rap back and make UMGs artists bigger, including Drake.

These labels have done this time and time again, esp in hiphop. Rap is and has been in a horrible state - objectively/commercially speaking.

Drake had massive backing by UMG in Iceman dropping. Every organization (including the White House...) is promoting the album lol, thats label driven. I am sure UMG also helped financially with all the promo (Iceblocks, CN Tower stuff, etc).

wouldn't be the 1st time

Drake doesn't care what 16 year old dudes on Reddit think about him lol, neither does UMG. They care about $ and everyone in rap has been losing money/not making as much.

Go look at Drakes recent commercial performance and compare it to Iceman.

doing a poor job of bringing rap back when its only drake actually putting up numbers

I'd maybe give your idea a thought if it didn't get to a point where the main supporting point of Dot's side was fabricated pedophile accusations.

(Although are they even "accusations" if no victims ever came forward?)

I dont think Drake would be okay with being called a pedophile in order to drum up a rally for the genre as a whole

"Call me schizophrenic"

OP is schizophrenic

I know people will give you s*** for this take but I have pondered this many times. The pedo s*** just makes it fall apart though sorry. I do think however that all parties involved assessed that the beef was worth it in the long run commercially.

if anything they used it as testing ground for AI usage in songs

I recall hearing gossip a phone call between different sides of the beef happened. I don’t think it was planned but it became clear it was inevitable so I could see some “no go topics” were agreed upon by the camps but one side felt the other crossed a line early so the gloves just came off.

And UMG just saw the public was more on Kendrick’s side so they further tilted the scale in his favor.

We probably won’t hear the real story until they are 50-60+ unfortunately lol.

The allegations from dot make that hard to believe but I was thinking this is the most intriguing position/meta Drake has been in since that gap between back to back and views

Being the winner has dominated his subject matter and meta for so long I always wondered what it would be like if he had to be the "underdog"/fight out of a corner

every time i read this all i gotta say is no one is ever going to agree to being publically called a f***ing pedophile

i think op might be on to something here

people dont remember this but a leaked song came out with kendrick and drake together where they apologize to each other. they were going to release this but UMG stopped them since they saw how much money NLU was making them

Don’t think the outcome was manufactured, guessing Drake wouldn’t be in on how it ended for him lol

Bruh

Dude heck no

Tell me you haven’t been involved in high stake business without telling me

Schizos are bottom of the barrel stg

Tell us what you think about the moon landing?

Hopefully we can find common ground on this point

UMG signed off and pushed NLU and the beef

You think UMG would sign off on that if they had even a doubt that it could destroy or even hurt one of, if not their biggest investment - Drake?

Running with the Drake PDF accusation creates a "us vs them" for the fanbases and is crazy engagement fuel. It really makes things an emotional investment, keeps the discourse constantly active online, and drives nonstop cycles of reactions, defenses, investigations, memes, diss breakdowns, and algo fuel.

theyre gonna kill u but this is an insanely intelligent take

maybe if he has a humiliation kink

"Yes, let's have the whole world singing along that I'm a pedophile, great plan"

Once again, Drake doesn't care what Kdot fanboys (and Drake haters) on Reddit think of him lol. He doesn't care about having some false accusation that has been said for the last decade be said in a song. Drake/UMG/Kdot care about money, this is an entertainment industry. Rap has been massively declining from all ways, streams, social media chatter, etc etc etc.

Let me ask you this? Do you think UMG had no input/marketing/etc in any of this? That would be pretty irrational, respectfully. You think if UMG believed this could hurt Drakes commercial success, they would allow it? Drake is one of, if not their biggest investment lol.

This takes you down 2 paths really...

• UMG knew this would create massive engagement (since labels have done it for decades) and create an "us vs them" group identity, make Drake/KDot stans more supportive, etc etc etc and create a stronger commercial Drake/KDot This is what has happened btw

• UMG wants to destroy their biggest investment/hurt his negotiating leverage, etc etc etc.

Okay cool for a year or however long people sang a song that says "a minor" boohoo, no one gives a s*** lol. Anyone who genuinely believes Drake is a PDF from that song has a useless opinion. Also, not like any of these 20 yr old edgy dudes opinions matter anyways.

These dudes and more importantly the labels care about money and honestly I'd do the same, if the whole world wants to sing along to a song that im a PDF and I knew I was going to make much more money. Sign me up. Read up on my other replies, not trying to reiterate the same s***.