It Sure Looks Like a Hacking Campaign Messed Up People's Spotify Wrapped

Every year, Spotify Wrapped provides a rundown of everything its users listened to over the past year. It’s a fun, and sometimes embarrassing, reminder of the music that dominated your life. Excitement turned to confusion this year when some users got their Wrapped roundup only to discover their lists taken over by an artist they weren’t listening to: Lil Durk.

The trouble stems from what users reported as an apparent hacking campaign back in May. Lil Durk is a Chicago-based drill rapper. He dropped his eighth album, Almost Healed, in May to tepid reviews. Despite the lukewarm critical response, the album debuted at number three on Billboard behind Taylor Swift’s Midnights and country music star Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time. Almost Healed didn’t sell particularly well, but it did boast an incredible 167 million streams, about 60 million more than Midnights did in the same period.

Around the time of the album’s release, numerous Spotify users complained their accounts had been hacked. A whole lot of people woke up in May and noticed their Spotify listens were dominated by repeated plays for Lil Durk, and posted about their problems on forums like Reddit and Spotify itself.

“I think someone might have hacked into my account or there was a glitch, but now all I see is Lil Durk on my profile,” one user wrote on Spotify’s community forum. They added, “I changed my password and logged out of all devices, but that still doesn't change the fact that he is still everywhere.” A Spotify moderator directed them to a resource page for hacked accounts as more users chimed in on the thread, saying they had the same issue.

The issue affected the Spotify Wrapped of Jackson Garrett, host of Off$hore and VICE’s actual accountant, who told Motherboard about the problem.

“I went to start some music one morning in May and noticed all my most recent listens were Lil durk. I knew It wasn't me and it freaked me out so I went through all my other accounts to make sure those weren't hacked too,” Garrett said.

“Somehow in those couple of days between when I found out and changed my password the hacker listened to so much Lil Durk that by the time my 2023 Wrapped came around I was in .05% of his listeners and it completely took over my entire wrap,” Garrett said. “Those couple of days there were 5 Lil Durk songs I listened to more than apparently any other song in my entire year.”

The apparent hack is weird because it flew under the radar. There was no obvious social engineering involved, and the only evidence that it occurred is buried in the weird algorithms of Spotify. Spotify did not return Motherboard’s request for comment.

Do you know anything else about Spotify Wrapped and the apparent hack? We'd love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Matthew Gault securely on Signal on +01 347 762 9212 or email matthew.gault@vice.com.

For Garrett, there was cold comfort in finding out he wasn’t the only one. “I was very upset when my wrapped came up today because I look forward to it every year,” he said. “I was worried about this year because my listening habits were drastically different this year. I started writing a show so a lot more chillhop than usual and some weird travel listens. I thought I might get some interesting results, but not like this. Not Lil Durk.”