Drake has withdrawn a legal challenge against his label Universal Music Group (UMG) and Spotify, accusing them of artificially inflating the popularity of a Kendrick Lamar song that disparaged him .

UMG and Spotify were accused of trying to "manipulate and saturate streaming services and radio." The rapper's lawyers claim UMG paid influencers and radio stations to play the song "Not Like Us," which topped the U.S. charts and was shown to have been played between March and May last year A major blow in the feud between Drake and Lamar.

UMG allegedly used bots to mass-stream "Not Like Us" on Spotify, "deceiving consumers into believing the song was more popular than it actually was." UMG is accused of paying Apple "to have its voice-controlled digital assistant Siri intentionally mislead users into saying they don't like us," and "has been taking steps in an apparent effort to conceal its plans, including but not limited to terminating its relationship with Drake or Employees considered loyal to Drake."

Both Drake and Lamar release music through UMG, Drake through Republic Records and Lamar through Interscope.

Universal Music Group called the accusations "contrived and ridiculous" and said: "Suggestions that Universal Music Group would do anything to harm its artists are offensive and untrue." Spotify also denied the accusations, saying: "Spotify There is no financial incentive for users to stream Not Like Us on any of Drake’s tracks.”

The filing is not a lawsuit, but a petition for documents prepared for potential litigation.

In New York court documents seen by the Guardian, Drake has now withdrawn the request, saying: "The petitioners hereby voluntarily cease this extraordinary proceeding against all defendants at no cost to either party."

Drake previously filed another petition in Texas alleging that Universal Music Group paid radio group iHeartRadio to play "Not Like Us" and that Universal Music Group allowed the song to be released despite his knowledge The song contains accusations that Drake is a "certified pedophile," which he denies. The petition remains active.

After countless diss tracks by each rapper, Lamar was universally considered the winner. "Not Like Us," which also claims Drake is a "colonizer" leeched from the hip-hop industry, has the most single-day and weekly streams of any rap song on Spotify.

Drake has released relatively little music since the feud: four songs were released in August, two more appear on Camila Cabello's album and one is a collaboration with Mexican-American band Fuerza Regida. But earlier this month, he returned to solo material with the freestyle "Fighting Irish," which reflected on Lamar's feud and the friendships lost as a result.

“The whole world fell in love with these stunts, even my brothers bought tickets / Seemed like they loved every minute / Just knew it was personal to us, not just business... I made a tragic mistake Mistakes, loyalty is not a given,” he said. He also addressed the "colonial" accusation, rapping "I'm staring at my daddy" - Drake's father is African-American.