At 8am Eastern time on November 29th, 2023 Spotify Wrapped was released. What should’ve been an occasion for streamers to view their most listened to artists and songs of the year, quickly took a turn for the worst when a number of innocent individuals found their accounts had been hacked.
By whom you may ask?
No other than Lil Durk.
“He was my second most listened to artist and I have never even heard of him.” Charlotte Stack, a Warde Junior, who’s top five played songs were all sung by the rapper, said.
This isn’t misinformation nor satire, in fact multiple members from Fairfield Warde were hacked by Lil Durk.
Lil Durk is a rap artist who’s 2023 album ‘Almost Healed’ has features from 21 Savage, J. Cole and even Morgan Wallen. But how could an artist with a number 1 on Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, have infiltrated so many people’s Spotify accounts?
And more importantly: why?
According to multiple sources, their peak listening month for Lil Durk varied from May to June. Stack is included in this majority as she had suspicions that she was hacked even before the 29th.
“Spotify sent me an email[in June] that said ‘someone has logged into your account.’” Stack recalled.
Like Stack, some victims were also aware that an avid Lil Durk fan had hacked them while it was happening.
A Spotify Community member on May 29th under the post ‘Lil Durk flooding my account when I have never listened to him’ confessed that:
“All I see is Lil Durk on my profile.”
They elaborated, “I have 0 recollection of ever listening to Lil Durk.”
There are some theories on how this could’ve happened. One of said theories is very relatable to many, especially those who are frequent visitors of the social media platform(ironically one that was in the news over privacy concerns): Tiktok.
“There were trends[on Tiktok] where you would look up on Receiptify and other websites to find your most listened to songs of one month.” Stack said.
These trends go beyond simply tracking your most played tracks but also judge your music taste(‘How basic are you?’), arrange various songs in your playlist to align with your zodiac sign and even discover how your music taste matches up with NPR music.
These may sound like weirdly obscure questions, a notion that I would strongly agree with. Yet, it boils down to one human truth: there’s a little bit of a narcissist in all of us. Plus, what’s the true harm? After plugging your account in, all you have to do is go to the ‘Settings’ tab on Spotify’s app and select ‘Remove Access’ to unlink the two.
While Receiptify’s privacy policy claims that “None of the data used by Receiptify is stored or collected anywhere,” and it’s impossible to know for certain what truly happened, various people being hacked by Lil Durk superfans can’t just be a coincidence…right?
The concept of an artist faking streams isn’t new to Spotify, so much so that they’ve had to institute a whole policy about it.
According to Billboard, “Under Spotify’s new royalties model, the platform will financially penalize labels or distributors when it finds that more than 90% of streams on a song are fraudulent, charging 10 euros per offending track.”
Time will tell whether this was an organized hacking by Lil Durk fans like when Swiftie’s(Taylor Swift fans) convinced everyone attending her ‘Eras Tour’ to make friendship bracelets(a project that even her now boyfriend Travis Kelce participated in) or a failed attempt at relevancy from the artist himself.
No matter the truth that’s sure to come out later, real people are being affected by this hacking right now, no matter how inconsequential the tampering of a Spotify Wrapped may seem.
“I’m not posting my top anything because it’s so embarrassing.” Stack admitted, in reference to the tradition of people sharing their music taste on their Instagram stories.
One thing is for certain, if Lil Durk did this in hopes of boosting streams or to diversify his listening pool, he was mistaken.
“I have no desire to listen to him.” Stack asserted.