Did SoFaygo surpass Kendrick Lamar on Spotify as the rapper with the most monthly listeners? Viral post debunked 

On July 14, 2025, X page @DailyNoud posted a report of SoFaygo surpassing Kendrick Lamar with the most monthly listeners on Spotify, tweeting:

"SoFaygo is now the rapper with the most monthly listeners on Spotify 🏆He surpasses Kendrick Lamar."

For the unversed, SoFaygo, aka Andre Dontrel Burt Jr., became popular after his 2019 track Knock Knock went viral on TikTok and eventually got a platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America.

While @DailyNoud's claim concerning SoFaygo surpassing Kendrick's monthly Spotify listeners has garnered over 2 million views at the time of this writing, the post is fake, given that no other credible media portal or publication has reported the same.

Additionally, the claim is not supported by numerical data, and the X page is a parody hip-hop news account, as mentioned in its bio. DailyNoud's X bio reads:

"#1 Source For PARODY Hip-Hop News | Follow For Viral Content | These are fake stories | Not affiliated with @DailyLoud 🙅‍♂️🙅‍♀️"

Moreover, on July 13, 2025, @chartdata reported that Drake had the most monthly listeners on Spotify currently and that he surpassed Kendrick Lamar. According to HypeBeast's July 14, 2025, report, Drake beat Kendrick by 30,000 listeners as he logged in 80.65 million monthly listeners as compared to the Money Trees rapper's 80.62 million monthly listeners.

The long-time rivals have come to loggerheads again after Drizzy's three-day headlining stint at the Wireless Festival and Kendrick's ongoing Grand National Tour alongside SZA.

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Rakim appreciates Kendrick Lamar name-dropping him in collab with Pusha T and Malice of the Clipse

Kendrick Lamar recently featured on hip-hop duo the Clipse's latest album Let God Sort Em Out, on the track Chains & Whips. In his guest verse, Kendrick name-dropped King's Paradise rapper Rakim, stating:

“The things I’ve seen under my eyelids/ Kaleidoscope dreams, murder, and sirens/ Let’s be clear, hip-hop died again/ Half of my profits may go to Rakim.”

Shortly after the album featuring Kendrick's verse was dropped on July 11, 2025, Rakim took to Instagram on July 13, 2025, to appreciate the fellow rapper's acknowledgement. Rakim posted a video driving his Porsche with Kendrick's Chains & Whips playing in the background, with the caption:

"@kendricklamar I salute yu KING !!! Thnx for the illest shout I heard in a loooong time,,and keep up the incredible work my brother,,you ain’t no joke !!!! Peace and blessings to yu and yours."

While Kendrick's association with the Clipse received praise from Rakim, it cost the hip-hop duo their deal with Def Jam Records and a large sum of money to keep the GNX rapper on the project.

Def Jam signed the Clipse for Let God Sort Em Out in October 2024, and in an interview with GQ dated June 2025, Pusha T mentioned that the record label liked the album except for Kendrick's guest verse. Moreover, Drake's rap feud with Kendrick resulted in the former suing Def Jam's parent company, Universal Music Group, over Kendrick Lamar's Not Like Us.

Eventually, Def Jam decided to pull the plug on the collaboration because the optics would make it appear like they were siding with two of Drake's biggest rivals; Kendrick and Pusha T. Talking about what followed, Pusha T shared:

“They wanted me to ask Kendrick to censor his verse, which of course I was never doing. And then they wanted me to take the record off. And so, after a month of not doing it, Steve Gawley, the lawyer over there, was like, ‘We'll just drop the Clipse.’ But that can't work because I'm still there [solo]. But [if] you let us all go….”

Following Pusha T's statement, talent manager Steven Victor told Billboard that Def Jam rejected their idea of reaching a middle ground in the situation, and that:

"We paid them the money, an insane amount of money. It wasn’t, like, $200,000. It was a lot of money for an artist to come up with. They bought themselves out of the deal."

Deciding to keep Kendrick Lamar's verse on Let God Sort Em Out cost the Clipse their association with Def Jam, to which Pusha T was already signed.

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In other news, Kendrick is on the Grand National Tour alongside SZA. The tour commenced on April 19, 2025, in Minneapolis, U.S.A, and is set to conclude on December 10, 2025, in Sydney, Australia.

Edited by Divya Singh