"This is a fake DM" — DJ Akademiks claims Drake's comments in Chris Blake Griffith's alleged chat were fabricated

Hip-hop influencer DJ Akademiks has claimed that Drake's recent alleged chats with Chris Blake Griffith are fake. On Tuesday, January 7, Griffith took to Instagram to share an alleged screenshot of his chat with Drizzy where the rapper addressed his recent legal feud with Universal Music Group (UMG), which has now been deleted.

On January 8, DJ Akademiks, who claims to be a close associate and supporter of the rapper, shared on X that the screenshot posted by Griffith was fake. He wrote:

"This is a fake DM. Drake called buddy a Rat..... he got mad and made up some fake DM to try to make the blogs and go viral. end of story."

In a subsequent tweet, Akademiks also confirmed that his source was "the boy" referring to Drake himself.

In the alleged screenshot shared by Griffith, Drizzy compared his legal feud with Universal Music Group to that of "Nike funding a campaign" about NBA star Lebron James' cheating allegation. He also spoke about making UMG a better place for future artists. The DMs allegedly came from the rapper's verified Instagram ID, @champagnepapi.

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Drake compares his legal battle with Universal Music Group to Nike funding a campaign about Lebron James' cheating allegations

Los Angeles Lakers v Toronto Raptors (Image via Getty)

In his alleged chats with Chris Blake Griffith, Drake compared his legal battle with UMG to Nike funding a campaign about NBA star Lebron James allegedly cheating on his wife. The screenshot said:

"Me and Universal is like if Nike was funding a campaign about Lebron cheating on his wife. Not Adidas or Reebok... Nike the company he been with since he started. My situation is not no street s**t."

Drizzy seemingly meant that his feud with UMG was similar to a hypothetical situation where the sports apparel juggernaut Nike would fund a campaign to tarnish Lebron James's reputation despite the NBA star working with them for years.

For context, the Toronto rapper has been working with UMG since 2022 when he signed a deal with the company for a reported $400 million. Moreover, he has also been associated with UMG due to his connection to another record label, Cash Money, which was a part of Republic Records owned by UMG.

Therefore, Drizzy was allegedly comparing his association with UMG to Lebron James' long-term association with Nike. The NBA legend has a lifetime contract with the sports apparel brand estimated at a reported excess of $500 million. James has been associated with Nike since the beginning of his career and was the first one to have signed a lifetime deal with them.

It is worth noting that Lebron James and Drake had reportedly been close associates before the latter feuded with Kendrick Lamar between March and May 2024. During the feud, James was spotted singing Lamar's verse in Future and Metro Boomin's track, Like That, the song that started the highly-publicized feud between Lamar and Drake.

James also made an appearance at Kendrick Lamar's Pop Out Show in June 2024, leading many to speculate that he's siding with Lamar over Drizzy in the rap feud. According to Hot New Hip Hop's report on December 7, the Toronto rapper also unfollowed James on Instagram after his feud with Lamar subsided.

Fans also speculated that Champagne Papi allegedly took shots at Lebron James in his latest song, Fighting Irish Freestyle, which was leaked on January 3. This is because James notably played for the Fighting Irish football team during his college days. Drizzy rapped:

“The world fell in love with the gimmicks, even my brothers got tickets/ Seemed like they loved every minute/ Just know this s**t is personal to us, and it wasn't just business.”

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In the alleged screenshots shared by Griffith, Drake also vouched to make UMG a safer place for future artists. The message said:

"Everybody before me that tried the label was too eccentric so they wrote them off as crazy and they never had to pay for their sins and mistakes. I'm going to change that and make the building a safer place for every artist moving forward."

However, later in the message, Drake also appeared to be discouraging Griffith (if the alleged chats were directed to him) from doing something, claiming it makes him look "crazy." The rapper said there are "better ways to handle it" than dropping a "tape." The context of the alleged messages remains unclear.