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While Drake is busy being accused of contouring his abs, the rapper’s lawyers are hard at work outlining a case against Universal Music Group over the release of “Not Like Us.” Perhaps aware that his pen could never triumph over any Pulitzer Kenny diss, Drake has chosen the road less traveled in a rap beef: the legal route. The OVO founder sued UMG for defamation and harassment on January 15 — an effort to desperately squeeze a win out of last year’s squabble with Kendrick Lamar. “UMG approved, published, and launched a campaign to create a viral hit out of a rap track that falsely accuses Drake of being a pedophile and calls for retribution against him,” reads the lawsuit obtained by Vulture.
Drake’s attempt to get his lick back comes amid a year of Kendrick unequivocally ending the goofy Torontonian, only for the Compton rapper to repeatedly trample on his proverbial grave at his funeral, a victory lap frequently likened to that one elephant’s in India. UMG denied Drake’s claims in a statement, saying it would be “illogical” for the label to harm one of their own artists.
Let’s dive in to the latest on Drake’s ongoing self-imposed humiliation ritual lawsuit.
What are Drake’s claims against Universal Music Group?
Drake is suing UMG for defamation and harassment over the release of “Not Like Us,” alleging the label heavily promoted the track despite the song creatively referencing internet rumors about his relationships with underage women. “Even though UMG enriched itself and its shareholders by exploiting Drake’s music for years, and knew that the salacious allegations against Drake were false, UMG chose corporate greed over the safety and well-being of its artists,” the lawsuit reads. Likening Kendrick’s diss track to Pizzagate, lawyers argue that the label continued to “fan the flames” of controversy even after multiple intruders and a gunman broke into the rapper’s Toronto estate in May 2024, days after “Not Like Us” dropped. (His attorneys literally represented the pizzeria at the center of Pizzagate.)
Crucially, Drake has not sued Kendrick, as the lawsuit strongly emphasizes. “This lawsuit is not about the artist who created ‘Not Like Us,’” the filing states (their italics, not mine). “It is, instead, entirely about UMG, the music company that decided to publish, promote, exploit, and monetize allegations that it understood were not only false, but dangerous.”
Lawyers claim UMG had a financial stake in Drake’s downfall. Released ahead of Drake’s contact negotiations, the label sought “to reduce” his “bargaining leverage.” Sounding like a disgruntled stan on Twitter, the filing also alleges UMG used payola-paid third parties to promote the song and used bots to artificially inflate streams, reiterating previous claims made ahead of the first filing.
To argue the general public was led to believe false claims sung in the key of A-minor, the filing cites a number of internet comments that react to various aspects of the “Not Like Us” rollout, giving us the image of suits going through a big stack of shitposts to debate which ones are best to include. The public’s disses seem to have stung as much as Kendrick’s five-song smackdown. The filing was amended in April to argue that Kendrick’s Super Bowl halftime show performance was yet another trespass, “further solidif[ying] the public’s belief in the truth of the allegations against Drake.”
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How has UMG responded?
UMG strongly denies Drake’s claims. The label doesn’t understand why it can distribute Drake’s disses containing salacious claims but cannot do the same with “Not Like Us,” a spokesperson argued on January 15. Drake’s songs are a part of “conventionally outrageous back-and-forth ‘rap battles,’” the spokesperson said, accusing the rapper of seeking “to weaponize the legal process to silence an artist’s creative expression.” Plus, ruining Drake’s image would be “illogical,” UMG said in the statement.
According to a filing, attorneys for UMG plan to use both Drake songs and key documents in their defense. These include contracts and agreements between the label and Drake; documents regarding the marketing and distribution of songs related to the feud; other recordings Drake made in prior beefs; news reports and documents “concerning Drake’s relationships with and behavior around minors,” together with criminal charges against OVO’s Baka Not Nice (recall the lyrics “Baka got a weird case why is he around?”); and the petition to keep rap lyrics off the stand, titled “Art on Trial: Protect Black Art.”
UMG wants the case thrown out. Drake “lost a rap battle that he provoked and in which he willingly participated … diss tracks are a popular and celebrated art form centered around outrageous insults, and they would be severely chilled if Drake’s suit were permitted to proceed,” the label claimed in a March 17 motion to dismiss the rapper’s “misguided” lawsuit, per the Guardian.
Which UMG executives are specifically named in the lawsuit?
Lucian Grainge, chairman and CEO of UMG, is accused of having a “role in and knowledge of the scheme to defame and harass” Drake, the Guardian reported. Lawyers for the rapper filed two new motions in the case on August 12, one of which asks UMG to turn over texts and emails by Grainge to find evidence of “malice.” The second motion requests that UMG produce documents “related to UMG’s historical censorship” of artists, claiming that UMG censored defamatory songs in the past yet failed to do so in the case of “Not Like Us.” Grainge called the allegations of his involvement “farcical,” “nonsensical,” “groundless and indeed ridiculous,” considering the company spent “hundreds of millions” supporting Drake, per Variety.
Why does Drake want to see Kendrick Lamar’s contract?
Drake’s lawyers are betting they’ll uncover some unspilled tea in Kendrick Lamar’s contract. In a motion filed on August 12, his legal team requested that UMG provide access to the restricted documents in the hope that it will show the label’s contractual authority of Kendrick’s music, thereby making UMG responsible for disseminating the allegations in “Not Like Us.” A judge granted access to review a redacted version of the contract a week later. The gag is only Drake’s legal team can see the documents, not Drake himself. Other prying eyes won’t have access to the documents, either. “In this instance, the ‘interest in protecting confidential business information outweighs the qualified First Amendment presumption of public access,’” Judge Jeannette Vargas said in a statement, per Vibe. Will this legal bet end up like Drizzy’s roller coaster of a gambling career? We’ll stay strapped in.
