Drake did one of his typical blitzes of the pop culture news cycle this week, releasing a new album—For All The Dogs, which arrived yesterday—while simultaneously announcing that he was stepping away from music for a bit to focus on his health. Now, though, Degrassi Junior High’s most famous alum has come in for some criticism from at least some of the artists whose work appears to have been featured on the album—because while their lyrics appear in Drake’s latest tracks, their names don’t appear in the credits.
Specifically, English synth duo Pet Shop Boys expressed their annoyance this weekend at a musical reference to their hit “West End Girls” on new song “All The Parties.” Writing on social media, the band noted that it was “Surprising to hear @Drake singing the chorus of ‘West End girls’ in the track ‘All the Parties’ on his new album. No credit given or permission requested.”
In the song (which also features Chief Keef), Drake briefly lifts a line from the Pet Shop Boys original, singing “East End boys and West End girls.” (As in the original song, he sings it twice.) To our ear, it also sounds like he’s at least trying to hit the same notes from the chorus of the 1984 chart-topper (although the entire song is pretty atonal in any case), but the lyrical reference feels pretty obvious. Although they flagged their label in the tweet, Pet Shop Boys don’t seem to be getting litigious at the moment—just irritated not to be asked to clear the musical nod.
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This wasn’t the only accusation of using other people’s work without permission that hit For All The Dogs right after its release: Rapper Rye Rye has accused Drake of unauthorized sampling of her song “Shake It To The Ground” on the song “Calling For You.” In fact, this is the second time she’s levied such accusations against him, claiming he also used a vocal sample from the same song for his 2022 track “Currents.”