Drake’s legal drama continues as the rap star is named in another high-profile lawsuit — this time involving Spotify. Rolling Stone’s Nancy Dillion and Jon Blistein broke the news on Monday morning (Nov. 3).
Drake is at the center of new legal scrutiny after a class action lawsuit accused Spotify of profiting from billions of fake streams that allegedly inflated his global streaming numbers. The complaint, filed Sunday in California federal court by rapper RBX — a cousin of Snoop Dogg — claims Spotify “turned a blind eye” to large-scale streaming fraud that benefited high-profile artists while disadvantaging independent musicians.
The lawsuit alleges that between 2022 and 2025, a “substantial percentage” of Drake’s roughly 37 billion streams were generated by bots and fake accounts. The filing cites what it calls “abnormal VPN activity” obscuring the true origin of the streams, including a four-day period in 2024 when 250,000 plays of Drake’s track “No Face” appeared to come from Turkey but were rerouted through the United Kingdom. The suit asserts that Spotify either knew or should have known of this fraudulent activity and failed to act.
RBX contends that the alleged manipulation inflated Drake’s streaming royalties at the expense of other artists. Spotify’s “streamshare” model pools advertising and subscription revenue before dividing royalties based on total streams per artist.
Drake Named In Class Action Lawsuit Against Spotify
Artificially high play counts for one artist, the lawsuit argues, reduce payments to others. The complaint also claims Spotify tolerated the inflated figures to increase its own advertising revenue and user metrics.
Drake is not named as a defendant, and there are no direct allegations of misconduct against him. However, the filing accuses Spotify of allowing his catalogue to be a major beneficiary of the scheme. The plaintiffs seek over $5 million in damages and class certification for artists allegedly harmed by the fraud.
The lawsuit comes just months after a judge dismissed Drake’s defamation case against Universal Music Group, in which he accused the label of manipulating streaming data to boost Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.”
Spotify and representatives for Drake have not publicly responded to the claims.
The RBX suit marks one of the most high-profile legal challenges to streaming fraud in the United States and could set precedent for how platforms monitor artificial play counts — and how artists’ royalty earnings are audited in the digital era.
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