{"id":4797,"date":"2025-03-19T17:26:46","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T17:26:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/umg-wants-drake-case-halted-says-he-wants-kendrick-lamars-contract\/"},"modified":"2025-03-19T17:26:46","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T17:26:46","slug":"umg-wants-drake-case-halted-says-he-wants-kendrick-lamars-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/umg-wants-drake-case-halted-says-he-wants-kendrick-lamars-contract\/","title":{"rendered":"UMG Wants Drake Case Halted, Says He Wants Kendrick Lamar’s Contract"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tU<\/span>niversal Music Group is asking a federal judge to halt all discovery in Drake<\/a>\u2019s defamation lawsuit over Kendrick Lamar<\/a>\u2019s diss track \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d arguing that the star is unfairly demanding \u201chighly commercially sensitive documents\u201d \u2013 including Lamar\u2019s record deal.<\/p>\n

\n\tA day after moving to dismiss the lawsuit, UMG followed up Tuesday by asking the judge to pause discovery until he rules on that motion. That ruling is likely to end the entire case, UMG argued, and the label should not face costly demands for documents that will ultimately \u201cbe rendered moot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSuch a delay is particularly necessary, UMG said, because Drake\u2019s lawyers are already demanding \u201cbroad discovery\u201d requests that impose an \u201cundue burden\u201d on the company. Those asks have allegedly ranged from Interscope boss John Janick\u2019s pay structure to Lamar\u2019s record deal.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDrake\u2019s requests\u2026seek production of confidential, proprietary, and highly commercially sensitive documents \u2014 including all contracts between UMG and Kendrick Lamar,\u201d the label writes. \u201cProceeding with discovery while the motion is pending would waste the parties\u2019 resources and would constitute an undue burden on defendant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a statement Wednesday, Drake\u2019s attorney Michael J. Gottlieb<\/strong> said it was \u201cunsurprising\u201d that UMG was \u201cdesperate\u201d to avoid handing over evidence: \u201cThis motion is a ploy to delay producing documents and communications that UMG hopes to keep hidden and buried. If UMG has nothing to hide, it should not have an issue with discovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUMG did not immediately return a request for comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tLamar released \u201cNot Like Us\u201d last May amid a high-profile beef with Drake that saw the two stars drop a series of bruising diss tracks. The song, a knockout punch that blasted Drake as a \u201ccertified pedophile\u201d over an infectious beat, eventually became a chart-topping hit in its own right and was the centerpiece of Lamar\u2019s Super Bowl halftime show.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn January, Drake took the unusual step of suing UMG over the song, claiming the label had defamed him by boosting the track\u2019s popularity. The lawsuit, which doesn\u2019t name Lamar himself as a defendant, alleges that UMG \u201cwaged a campaign\u201d against its own artist to spread a \u201cmalicious narrative\u201d about pedophilia that it knew to be false.<\/p>\n

\n\tUMG moved to dismiss the case on Monday, arguing not only that Drake\u2019s allegations against the company were clearly \u201cmeritless,\u201d but that the star filed his case simply because he had been publicly embarrassed: \u201cInstead of accepting the loss like the unbothered rap artist he often claims to be, he has sued his own record label in a misguided attempt to salve his wounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Tuesday\u2019s filing, UMG argued that it was highly likely to succeed on those claims. And it warned that the daunting cost of defending against meritless defamation cases can be abused by those that want to squelch free speech.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cCritically, courts in this District have emphasized that defamation defendants must be protected from unnecessary discovery to safeguard First Amendment protections,\u201d the company\u2019s lawyers write. \u201cA stay is therefore particularly warranted here given the untenability of Drake\u2019s defamation claim and the First Amendment rights at issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAttached to Tuesday\u2019s motion was the actual discovery request allegedly filed by Drake, which begins by asking UMG to hand over \u201call contracts and agreements between you and Kendrick Lamar Duckworth, his agents, or anyone working on his behalf.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAmong its many other requests, Drake\u2019s filing asked for documents relating to decisions on \u201cwhether to omit or censor any lyrics\u201d from \u201cNot Like Us\u201d during the Super Bowl halftime show; for anything related to the promotion of the song on Spotify and Apple Music; and any communications with Recording Academy ahead of Lamar\u2019s string of award wins at the Grammy Awards in February.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe two sides have already sparred over discovery once before. In a court filing last month, Drake\u2019s lawyers said UMG was unfairly seeking to delay the case as their client continued to be defamed \u2014 and they cited Lamar\u2019s halftime show as evidence of such ongoing harm. A judge eventually sided with Drake over that procedural issue, setting the stage for UMG\u2019s motion on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Universal Music Group is asking a federal judge to halt all discovery in Drake\u2019s defamation lawsuit over Kendrick Lamar\u2019s diss track \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d arguing that the star […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[294,1462,441,5157,402,4327,1109],"class_list":["post-4797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-case","tag-contract","tag-drake","tag-halted","tag-kendrick","tag-lamars","tag-umg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4797","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=4797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}