NEWS
ATLANTA, GEORGIA - SEPTEMBER 12: Artists Timbaland and Swizz Beatz attend day 1 of REVOLT Summit x AT&T Summit on September 12, 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia.
Paras Griffin/Getty Images for RevoltLooks like the word on the curb is out about co-founders Swizz Beatz and Timbaland’s popular Verzuz brand finding new partners to play music with, in social media app Triller. Last week, rumors unexpectedly swirled about Verzuz separating from their Apple Music relationship. In an early morning post (March 9th) to Instagram, Swizz Beatz exclaimed, “Finally something that the creatives own officially!!!! @timbaland it’s showtime!! By the artist for the artist with the people!!!”
Triller, launched in 2015 by co-founders David Leiberman and Sammy Rubin, allows users to take snippets of songs and create quick shareable clips that span the length of their imaginations. Boasting downloads in the 100 million range, Triller seems to aim at playing close to celebs and record labels that distribute the tracks that all the youngins flock to rock. Can Verzuz find the footing needed to expand the battle brand in uncharted ways with Triller? We’ll all have to wait and see.
A typical Verzuz battle, which has featured dozens of match-ups with the likes of DMX vs. Snoop, Bounty Killer vs. Beenie Man and even Gladys Knight vs. Patti LaBelle, routinely scores collective social media viewing numbers into the millions. During the height of the pandemic lock down in 2020, Swizz and Timb’s competitive creation gave much needed light hearted moments and brought back the love of songs from times past.
What this post means as far as deal points between the artist challenge platform that pits music stars catalogues against one another, is also yet to be explained. In the meantime, Swizz got busy after the posting, in seemingly celebrating the news by launching into an IG Live playlist party dubbed “Zone Radio (also born out of the pandemic times like Verzuz).” This edition by Swizz was also in honor of International Women’s Day, “Let’s shout out all the women!”
He didn’t address his announcement about the deal in the live feed, but we are sure to hear more in the coming days, if not sometime later today. Let’s give the fellas a moment to get the announcement all the way explained, as we are sure Swizz is bursting to get the info out. More details to come.
NEWS
Say what you will about the UMG defamation lawsuit over "Not Like Us," but it hasn't been difficult for Drake to stay on top in any case. Whether you think the industry is trying to take him down or people dismissed him as their champion, you're probably missing the big picture.
According to Hip Hop All Day on Twitter, the Toronto superstar became the first rapper to surpass 5 billion streams on Spotify in 2025, continuing his stretch this year as the most streamed rapper on the platform. Others aren't too far behind, but these continually impressive commercial numbers are hard to knock off.
Of course, there are a few reasons for this. One of them is the OVO mogul's recent collab album with PARTYNEXTDOOR, $ome $exy $ongs 4 U. Both the Billboard Hot 100 success of the solo cut "NOKIA" plus rapid sales for the project as a whole translate to a whole lot of engagement on the digital streaming platform.
Another driving factor behind Drake's numbers is the anticipation for his next album (albeit with no release date), which he recently confirmed he's working on during a gambling livestream with Adin Ross. As such, we imagine a lot of die-hards are probably coming back to their favorite catalog material to prepare for their wildest dreams – if they weren't already bumping The Boy nonstop to begin with.
Even Kanye West is giving the 6ix God his props these days, even though his long-standing beef with Drizzy is constantly a subject of his flip-flopping tendencies. "This is the biggest victory in music history, right here," Ye said of the UMG lawsuit. "I'm never finna call Drake out of his name. I'm Team Drake, 100 percent. And Team Kendrick, and Team All Of Us... Kendrick needs to be going at UMG at this point. [...] Like, let's stop aiming all this at each other. You have no idea. Everything is worth everything for a moment like this. Where we stop going at each other and we go at the slave masters."
Will Drake be successful and impactful with this? That's up to the court to decide, and up to the industry and its artists to reckon with following their decision. But in the meantime, that Spotify revenue is looking beefy.
