{"id":5057,"date":"2025-04-03T04:56:57","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T04:56:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/drake-can-seek-kendrick-lamar-docs-in-not-like-us-defamation-lawsuit\/"},"modified":"2025-04-03T04:56:57","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T04:56:57","slug":"drake-can-seek-kendrick-lamar-docs-in-not-like-us-defamation-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/drake-can-seek-kendrick-lamar-docs-in-not-like-us-defamation-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Drake Can Seek Kendrick Lamar Docs In ‘Not Like Us’ Defamation Lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tA<\/span> federal judge says Drake can move forward with discovery in his defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG) over Kendrick Lamar\u2019s diss track \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d allowing his attorneys to begin demanding documents like Lamar\u2019s record deal.<\/p>\n

\n\tUMG had asked Judge Jeannette A. Vargas to halt the discovery process last month, arguing that Drake\u2019s case was so flawed that it would likely be quickly dismissed \u2014 and that the star was unfairly demanding \u201chighly commercially sensitive documents\u201d in the meantime.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut at a hearing Wednesday (April 2) in Manhattan federal court, the judge denied that motion in a ruling from the bench. The judge had hinted in earlier rulings that she does not typically delay discovery before deciding if a case will be dismissed, barring extraordinary circumstances.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn response to the ruling, Drake\u2019s lead attorney Michael Gottlieb<\/strong> said: \u201cNow it\u2019s time to see what UMG was so desperately trying to hide.\u201d An attorney for UMG declined to comment, and a spokesman for the company did not immediately return a request for comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tFollowing Wednesday\u2019s decision, Drake\u2019s attorneys will now continue to push ahead with seeking key documents and demanding to depose witnesses. But discovery in a civil lawsuit is a two-way street, opening a plaintiff up to scrutiny from accused parties seeking to defend themselves. UMG will seek vast swathes of sensitive materials about Drake, and will likely demand to depose the rapper himself.<\/p>\n

\n\tLamar released \u201cNot Like Us\u201d last May amid a high-profile beef with Drake that saw the two stars release 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 his 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 filed a scathing motion seeking to dismiss the case last month, arguing not only that it was \u201cmeritless\u201d but also ridiculing Drake for suing in the first place. Days later, the company asked Judge Vargas to pause discovery until she ruled on that motion, warning that exchanging evidence would be a waste of time if the case was then immediately tossed out of court.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut in a quick response, Drake\u2019s lawyers argued discovery must go on because the lawsuit was not going anywhere: \u201cUMG completely ignores the complaint\u2019s allegations that millions of people, all over the world, did understand the defamatory material as a factual assertion that plaintiff is a pedophile.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThough discovery is now moving forward, it\u2019s unclear exactly what materials will be turned over; the scope of such requests is often heavily litigated. But in the earlier filings in the case, UMG attached the actual discovery requests filed by Drake\u2019s team, detailing the materials his attorneys are seeking.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmong many others, they want documents relating to decisions on \u201cwhether to omit or censor any lyrics\u201d from \u201cNot Like Us\u201d during the Super Bowl halftime show; anything related to the promotion of the song on Spotify and Apple Music; and any communications with the Recording Academy ahead of Lamar\u2019s string of award wins at the Grammy Awards in February; and \u201call contracts and agreements between you and Kendrick Lamar Duckworth, his agents, or anyone working on his behalf.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A federal judge says Drake can move forward with discovery in his defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG) over Kendrick Lamar\u2019s diss track \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d allowing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5058,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[720,5344,441,402,403,303,550],"class_list":["post-5057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-defamation","tag-docs","tag-drake","tag-kendrick","tag-lamar","tag-lawsuit","tag-seek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5057","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=5057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}