{"id":7392,"date":"2025-08-15T14:15:58","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T14:15:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/umg-ceo-lucian-grainge-responds-to-drakes-farcical-emails-demand\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T14:15:58","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T14:15:58","slug":"umg-ceo-lucian-grainge-responds-to-drakes-farcical-emails-demand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/umg-ceo-lucian-grainge-responds-to-drakes-farcical-emails-demand\/","title":{"rendered":"UMG CEO Lucian Grainge Responds to Drake’s ‘Farcical’ Emails Demand"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tU<\/span>niversal Music Group CEO Lucian Grainge<\/strong> is firing back at Drake<\/a>\u2019s demand to read his emails amid the ongoing lawsuit over Kendrick Lamar<\/a> diss track \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d calling the request \u201cfarcical\u201d and \u201cridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a scathing declaration filed in court Thursday, Grainge said it \u201cmakes no sense whatsoever\u201d that the boss of the world\u2019s largest music company would play a role in the release of a single song.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe proposition that I am in the weeds as to the release and promotion of any particular sound recording, from the thousands of UMG releases throughout the world, is farcical,\u201d Grainge wrote.<\/p>\n

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\n\tThe new filing came as discovery is underway in Drake\u2019s lawsuit, which claims UMG defamed him by releasing Lamar\u2019s scathing diss track that labeled him a \u201ccertified pedophile.\u201d Last week, his lawyers demanded to see Grainge\u2019s emails and text messages.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the head of a huge corporation, Grainge says he\u2019s used to such filings that seek to \u201cwaste my and UMG\u2019s time and resources with discovery of the sort that Drake is seeking here.\u201d But he also responded directly to the claim that he was personally scheming to help promote a record that Drake says was defamatory.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI would like to make it quite clear that I had never heard the recording \u2018Not Like Us,\u2019 nor ever saw the corresponding cover art or music video, until after they were released,\u201d Grainge wrote in the filing. \u201cThe proposition that I was involved in, much less responsible for, reviewing and approving the content of \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d its cover art or music video, or for determining or directing the promotion of those materials, is groundless and indeed ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLamar released \u201cNot Like Us\u201d last year amid a war-of-words with Drake that saw the two UMG 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, became a Hot 100-topping hit in its own right. The song and its video won five Grammy Awards, including record and song of the year.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn January, Drake took the unusual step of taking UMG to court, claiming his own label had defamed him by boosting the track\u2019s popularity, including through the use of bots and other nefarious marketing tactics. The lawsuit, which didn\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

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\n\tUMG has said those allegations were clearly meritless \u2013 that \u201chyperbolic insults\u201d and \u201cvitriolic allegations\u201d are par for the course in diss tracks and cannot form the basis for a libel lawsuit. The company has pointedly noted that Drake himself was happy to make such attacks, including accusing Lamar of domestic abuse, until he lost the battle.<\/p>\n

\n\tLast week, Drake\u2019s lawyers filed a motion seeking to force UMG to hand over more materials in discovery \u2013 the phase in litigation where the two sides exchange relevant evidence. They say UMG has refused to fully cooperate, including with Grainge\u2019s messages: \u201cUMG\u2019s insistence on shielding Grainge from document discovery is unfair, unwarranted and inconsistent with fundamental principles of discovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut in Thursday\u2019s response filings, UMG\u2019s attorneys called that effort \u201ca transparent attempt\u201d to harass the company and its boss \u201cout of spite.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe premise of Drake\u2019s motion \u2014 that he could not have lost a rap battle unless it was the product of some imagined secret conspiracy going to the top of UMG\u2019s corporate structure \u2014 is absurd,\u201d writes UMG\u2019s lawyer Rollin Ransom<\/strong>. \u201cSir Lucian is the CEO of a multinational enterprise; his days are spent determining and implementing global strategy, not vetting individual tracks or album covers or driving the release and promotional plans for any one recording.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grainge is firing back at Drake\u2019s demand to read his emails amid the ongoing lawsuit over Kendrick Lamar diss track \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7393,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[594,400,401,1210,6645,1111,1110,1530,1109],"class_list":["post-7392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-ceo","tag-demand","tag-drakes","tag-emails","tag-farcical","tag-grainge","tag-lucian","tag-responds","tag-umg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7392","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=7392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}