Cover of Drake’s “Certified Lover Boy” album — which Siri allegedly hides from you — image credit: Drake
Drake has started a beef with Apple, claiming that Siri has been bribed to play Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us”, even when you ask for “Certified Lover Boy.”
Back when radio stations didn’t sound identical across the nation, there was the problem of payola where a DJ could be paid to promote certain songs. Rapper Drake believes this is still continuing to this day — but that the name of the DJ in question is Siri.
“On information and belief, UMG [Universal Music Group] paid, or approved payments to, Apple Inc. to have its voice-activated digital assistant ‘Siri’ purposely misdirect users to ‘Not Like Us,'” says a court filing by Drake’s lawyers. “Online sources reported that when users asked Siri to play the album ‘Certified Loverboy’ by recording artist Aubrey Drake Graham d/b/a [doing business as] Drake, Siri instead played ‘Not Like Us,’ which contains the lyric ‘certified pedophile,’ an allegation against Drake.”
So Siri, perhaps fearing that she’ll lose her job when Apple Intelligence kicks in properly, has allegedly been taking back-handers from Kendrick Lamar. It’s definitely not all because Siri will famously get right the first ten times you ask for a song and then suddenly get it crazily wrong the next time.
No, it actually isn’t. What it is, is that Apple apparently doesn’t think it can count on us to know the name of a song we like. It thinks we might, if we’re lucky, remember some of the lyrics.
And yes, Kendrick Lamar’s song “Not Like Us” does feature the line “certified lover boy.” It is a direct reference to the title of Drake’s song, and it is at least purportedly about the feud between the two men.
You’d think that a song with the a line in the title would be weighted higher than one that has those words in the lyrics, but apparently you’d be wrong. It might help that Lamar’s song came out in May 2024, while Drake’s was in 2021.
So perhaps Siri is prioritizing newer releases. Or, you know, the release that won three BET Hip Hop Awards and is now nominated for five Grammys despite you having never heard of it.
But before Drake hauls Tim Cook into court for trying to line his pockets with some minute fraction of Apple’s hourly income, there is a problem. While witnesses say Siri plays the wrong song like this, they specifically say it does so on Spotify.
Use Siri to play “Certified Lover Boy” on Apple Music, and it plays the correct track. So maybe Drake should be suing Spotify for being rubbish.
