{"id":3756,"date":"2025-01-19T13:07:03","date_gmt":"2025-01-19T13:07:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/drake-sues-umg-for-defamation-over-kendrick-lamars-not-like-us\/"},"modified":"2025-01-19T13:07:03","modified_gmt":"2025-01-19T13:07:03","slug":"drake-sues-umg-for-defamation-over-kendrick-lamars-not-like-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/drake-sues-umg-for-defamation-over-kendrick-lamars-not-like-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Drake Sues UMG For Defamation Over Kendrick Lamar\u2019s ‘Not Like Us’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tDrake has filed a lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG) over allegations that the music giant defamed him by promoting Kendrick Lamar\u2019s diss track \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d claiming the label boosted a \u201cfalse and malicious narrative\u201d that the star rapper was a pedophile and put his life in danger.<\/p>\n

\n\tHours after his attorneys withdrew an earlier petition, Drake filed a full-fledged defamation lawsuit Wednesday (Jan. 15) against his longtime label \u2014 claiming UMG knew Lamar\u2019s \u201cinflammatory and shocking allegations\u201d were false but chose to place \u201ccorporate greed over the safety and well-being of its artists.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cUMG intentionally sought to turn Drake into a pariah, a target for harassment, or worse,\u201d the star\u2019s lawyers write in a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court. \u201cUMG did so not because it believes any of these false claims to be true, but instead because it would profit from damaging Drake\u2019s reputation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn one of the lawsuit\u2019s most vivid accusations, Drake claims that the release of \u201cNot Like Us\u201d has subjected him to the risk of physical violence, including a drive-by shooting on his Toronto area home just days after the song was released. His attorneys likened the situation to \u201cPizzagate,\u201d an infamous online conspiracy theory centered on false allegations of pedophilia that later inspired a real-life shooting.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cUMG\u2019s greed yielded real world consequences,\u201d his lawyers write. \u201cWith the palpable physical threat to Drake\u2019s safety and the bombardment of online harassment, Drake fears for the safety and security of himself, his family, and his friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNotably, the case does not target Lamar himself \u2014 a point that Drake\u2019s attorneys repeatedly stress in their filings: \u201cUMG may spin this complaint as a rap beef gone legal, but this lawsuit is not about a war of words between artists.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a strongly-worded response statement issued later on Wednesday, UMG flatly denied Drake\u2019s allegations, saying it would be \u201cillogical\u201d for the company to conspire against one of its own artists in whom it had made a \u201cmassive\u201d investment.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe have not and do not engage in defamation\u2014against any individual,\u201d UMG said in the statement. \u201cAt the same time, we will vigorously defend this litigation to protect our people and our reputation, as well as any artist who might directly or indirectly become a frivolous litigation target for having done nothing more that write a song.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWednesday\u2019s lawsuit is yet another dramatic escalation in a high-profile beef that saw Drake and Lamar exchange stinging diss tracks last year, culminating in Lamar\u2019s knockout \u201cNot Like Us\u201d \u2014 a track that savagely slammed Drake as a \u201ccertified pedophile\u201d and became a chart-topping hit in its own right.<\/p>\n

\n\tDrake shocked the music industry in November when he filed petitions suggesting he might sue over the feud \u2014 first accusing UMG and Spotify of an illegal \u201cscheme\u201d involving bots, payola and other methods to pump up Lamar\u2019s song, then later claiming that the song had been defamatory. But those cases were not quite full-fledged lawsuits, and Drake withdrew one of them late on Tuesday (Jan. 14).<\/p>\n

\n\tNow it\u2019s clear why: In Wednesday\u2019s lawsuit, he formally sued UMG over the same alleged scheme, claiming the label \u201cunleashed every weapon in its arsenal\u201d to drive the popularity of Lamar\u2019s track even though it knew the lyrics were \u201cnot only false, but dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWith his own record label having waged a campaign against him, and refusing to address this as a business matter, Drake has been left with no choice but to seek legal redress against UMG,\u201d his lawyers write.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe filing of the case represents a doubling-down for Drake, who has been ridiculed in some corners of the hip-hop world for filing legal actions over a rap beef. It also will deepen further his rift with UMG, where the star has spent his entire career \u2014 first through signing a deal with Lil Wayne\u2019s Young Money imprint, which was distributed by Republic Records, then by signing directly to Republic.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn his complaint, Drake\u2019s lawyers say the label opted to boost \u201cNot Like Us\u201d despite its \u201cdefamatory\u201d lyrics because they saw it as a \u201cgold mine\u201d \u2014 partly because UMG owns Lamar\u2019s master recordings outright, but also because it could use the song to hurt Drake\u2019s standing in future contract talks.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cUMG\u2019s contract with Drake was nearing fulfillment \u2026 UMG anticipated that extending Drake\u2019s contract would be costly,\u201d his lawyers write. \u201cBy devaluing Drake\u2019s music and brand, UMG would gain leverage to force Drake to sign a new deal on terms more favorable to UMG.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe filing reveals new behind-the-scene details about the lead-up to the litigation. Drake\u2019s attorneys say they sent several legal letters last summer and fall, warning UMG that the lyrics were false and defamatory. They say Drake also privately \u201cconfronted\u201d his label about its role in promoting Lamar\u2019s lyrics and warned of risks to his safety, but that the label \u201crefused to do anything to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tInstead, the lawsuit suggests that UMG merely advised Drake of the reputational risks of filing a lawsuit during a rap beef.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAfter weeks of delay, UMG declined to do anything to assist Drake, including even going so far as refusing to agree to mediate with Drake,\u201d his attorneys write. \u201cUMG instead insisted that it bore no responsibility for the harm Drake had suffered, and represented that if Drake sued UMG, UMG would respond by bringing claims against Kendrick Lamar, and intimated that Drake would face public ridicule for the perception that he had sued another rapper.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn their complaint, Drake\u2019s lawyers go out of their way to argue that he has not, in fact, sued another rapper. Though they repeatedly allege that Lamar\u2019s lyrics and music video were defamatory, they say the case is legally about the steps that UMG took after Drake had informed his label that Lamar\u2019s accusations were false and dangerous.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis lawsuit involves no claims against Kendrick Lamar or any other artist,\u201d his lawyers write. \u201cInstead, it is about UMG \u2026 and its malicious decision to publish and promote, through covert means, false allegations about Drake that UMG knew were false, explosive, inflammatory, and certain to result in both vitriol and substantial harm to Drake\u2019s reputation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe complaint re-ups many accusations from Drake\u2019s earlier case, like the claim that UMG conspired with others to artificially boost \u201cNot Like Us.\u201d That scheme allegedly included using bots to create fake streams and making undisclosed payments, as well as charging Spotify a lower licensing rate in return for pushing the song to its users. Drake also says UMG took the \u201cunprecedented\u201d step of \u201cwhitelisting\u201d the song on YouTube \u2014 meaning users could share it without triggering automatic copyright filters.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the lawsuit also includes new allegations about UMG\u2019s efforts to \u201cput a thumb on the scale\u201d in favor of Lamar, including his upcoming performance at February\u2019s Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show: \u201cUMG conferred financial benefits and leveraged existing business relationships to secure the headliner-spot,\u201d his lawyers write.<\/p>\n

\n\tAll those efforts, Drake\u2019s attorneys say, have had the desired effect: \u201cbillions of plays\u201d and \u201cubiquitous\u201d popularity for \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d which spent two weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 in May and remains at the 23rd spot on the chart this week.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith that massive popularity, Drake says he has faced a massive hit to his reputation, resulting in \u201cunrelenting vitriol\u201d and acts of violence against one of UMG\u2019s own longtime artists.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEven though UMG enriched itself and its shareholders by exploiting Drake\u2019s 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,\u201d his lawyers say.<\/p>\n

\n\tUPDATE: This story was updated at 4:41 pm EST with a response statement from UMG. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Drake has filed a lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG) over allegations that the music giant defamed him by promoting Kendrick Lamar\u2019s diss track \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d claiming […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[720,441,402,4327,479,1109],"class_list":["post-3756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-defamation","tag-drake","tag-kendrick","tag-lamars","tag-sues","tag-umg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}