DJ Akademiks says if Drake's 'Nokia' does not enter Top 5 songs on the charts for some weeks "that's UMG"

Drake and PartyNextDoor released their collaborative album $ome $*xy $ongs 4 U on February 14, 2025. The album was dropped a few days after Drizzy began his Anita Max Win Tour in Australia. All the tracks from this album, including Nokia and Gimme A Hug debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 chart this week, as reported by Billboard.

While Gimme A Hug secured the sixth position on the chart, Nokia was at the tenth position. Despite this, DJ Akademiks shared his take claiming that Nokia deserved to be on top 5 of the charts. Ak spoke about the song during a livestream, and stated:

"I think that song actually did well. So, I think the Nokia song... I think it's gonna be top 5 song, if it's not on top 5, that's UMG."

According to the tweet shared on February 25 by @AkademiksTV, the mid week rating suggested that the track had dropped from rank 10 to 13. The reference to UMG was possibly made due to the ongoing legal battle between the label and Drake, in which the rapper filed a suit against them.

According to Luminate, the track was streamed 2.9 million times on Tuesday, February 25. The song reportedly sold about 13,000 copies in the first five days of its release. As reported by HotNewHipHop dated February 23, Nokia and Gimme A Hug were two of the most impactful songs of the latest album by Drake and PartyNextDoor.

Meanwhile, the collaborative project has topped the Billboard 200 albums chart, after about 246K units were reportedly sold in the first week itself. This tied him with Jay-Z and Taylor Swift for having the most number of albums at #1 rank on Billboard charts records.

As per HotNewHipHop, while the track has been experiencing commercial success, some claimed that it lacked depth.

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Drake's lawyer recently called out UMG for apparently trying to delay the pre-trial

As mentioned before, DJ Akademiks claimed that UMG would be to blame if Nokia did not do well. For context, Drake has lodged a defamation lawsuit against UMG, his own record label. All this drama was surrounding Kendrick Lamar's Not Like Us, in which the former insinuated Drake to be a p*dophile. The Canadian rapper, however, has not sued Kendrick.

The latest update on the case is Drake's attorney accusing UMG's legal team of being unprofessional, as per reports by Rolling Out dated February 25. While the rapper's team wanted the pre-trial to begin on the originally scheduled time in April, UMG's team seemed to have tried delaying the date.

Michael J. Gottlieb, Drizzy's lawyer urged the court to not approve the defendant's request. According to Gottlieb, UMG's legal team was aware of the suit since July 2024, and thus, got enough time to build a case. Gottlieb further added the delaying the pre-trial would lead to an amplification of the alleged damage caused by the record label.

Meanwhile, UMG claimed that Drake had reportedly withdrawn certain key allegations from the lawsuit. This was later dismissed by Gottlieb who stated that the suit revolved around one primary issue and any kind of revision would not make much difference to the suit. The pre-trial is set to begin on April 2, 2025.