A Grammy-Winning Drake Collaborator Says the 'Janice STFU' Hook Was His Demo. Drake's Camp Says 'Not One Iota of Truth.' Who Has the Receipts?

Drake has spent a lot of his career hearing that other people write his songs. Now one of his own former collaborators is in federal court saying the biggest Drake hit in years started as his demo. Drake's team says that's flat wrong. Let's look at what each side has actually put on the table.

On Oct. 16, Aviel Calev Hirschfield, known as Avi, sued Aubrey Drake Graham, OVO Sound, UMG Recordings and Universal Music Publishing in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, case No. 2:26-cv-12115, according to the complaint and Copyright Now. It is a single count of copyright infringement. Everything below about what Drake or his team did is what the lawsuit alleges. None of it has been proven, and Drake's representatives deny all of it.

Who is Avi? The complaint describes him as a Grammy-winning hip-hop artist, producer and engineer best known for producing and co-writing "Heated" with Drake for Beyonce's Renaissance album. So this is not a stranger off the internet. CBC News described him the same way: a producer who had worked with Drake before.

Here's his story, per the filing. In 2025, he was driving to Seattle in a loaned Maybach when Lykke Li's "I Follow Rivers" came on. He knew Drake was a fan of Lykke Li and had interpolated her music before, so he started reworking the hook with Drake in mind. He had instrumentals from FnZ, the producing duo of Michael Mule and Isaac De Boni, who the complaint says have worked with Drake on multiple hits. Around Jan. 25, 2026, he finished recording his vocals at his home studio, including an eight-line chorus that opens "Reach me, baby / Call my phone and say you need me, baby." He sent it to FnZ and other producers who work with Drake. He says he heard nothing back.

Then, on or about May 15, "Janice STFU" dropped. The complaint says that 15 seconds in, Avi "was stunned to hear Drake perform word-for-word, note-for-note, the exact same chorus" he had recorded. FnZ were credited as producers, and Drake was the sole credited artist on streaming platforms, according to the filing.

The lawsuit alleges that after Avi's manager handed Drake's representatives the recording-software stems, with metadata the complaint says shows the chorus was made months before Drake started working on the song, the defense still maintained that Drake wrote the chorus on his own. And then, the complaint says, Drake's litigation counsel sent Avi a cease-and-desist letter. Avi registered the work with the U.S. Copyright Office, registration SRu 1-646-991, effective July 21, 2026, according to the complaint, and Copyright Now reported the public catalog lists it as an unpublished recording titled "audio 5 [2026-01-25 144441]."

Why does the money matter? The complaint says "Janice STFU" debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and has more than 300 million Spotify streams. Avi is asking for damages, Drake's profits from the song or statutory damages, and attorney's fees, Copyright Now reported. CBC called it the biggest hit Drake has released in years.

Now the other side, and it's not soft. A representative for Drake told TMZ: "These allegations are categorically, unequivocally, and completely denied. There is not one iota of truth to these accusations." TMZ reported that Drake's team called the suit a money grab, and Complex reported that his team says Drake wrote the song and has no connection to Avi's work. As of this writing, no court has ruled on anything.

So here's my speculation, labeled loud and clear as opinion, not fact. Follow the money first. A No. 1 Hot 100 debut and more than 300 million Spotify streams, per the complaint, means songwriting royalties that get split by credit. Every name not on the credit is a slice nobody else has to share. In my read, that's why credit fights get nasty the bigger the song gets. Who benefits if the credits stay as they are? Everybody already on them. That is not an accusation against anyone; it's how the math works.

Now the label shade, and this is speculation. The complaint names UMG Recordings, the same label Drake sued for defamation in January 2025 over its promotion of Kendrick Lamar's "Not Like Us," according to the AP and Reuters. UMG denied his claims, a federal judge dismissed that suit in October 2025, and Drake's appeal is set for argument on Dec. 4, Music Business Worldwide reported. So Drake and UMG are opponents in one courtroom and co-defendants in another. My opinion: watch whether UMG fights this one as hard as Drake's camp is talking. If a label has its own reasons to keep its distance from a star, a case like this is where you might see it. I'm reading tea leaves; nothing in the filings says that.

What might be hidden? Avi's side has a registered recording with a January timestamp and stems he says carry metadata. Drake's side, presumably, has session files too. In my read, whoever's files are older and cleaner wins this, and the most interesting question is the one nobody's answered publicly: did the FnZ beat that Avi sang on ever get sent back out with his vocals still on it? I don't know. That's speculation about what discovery could show, not a claim about what happened. CBC reported Avi's version has leaked online, and side-by-sides are circulating; my opinion is that a side-by-side proves nothing about who heard what first.

Why are not more people talking about this? Drake's lawsuits usually come with a fight attached, and this one doesn't have a villain everybody already picked. It's a credit dispute between two men who made a Beyonce record together, and those are the cases that tell you how hits really get built.

What we still don't know: whether FnZ ever passed Avi's demo to Drake, what the metadata actually shows when an expert looks at it, what Drake's own session files show, whether the defense will challenge the registration, and whether this settles before anyone has to answer under oath. I'll be watching the docket.