Universal Music Group has submitted a motion to dismiss the lawsuit brought by rapper Drake against them.
The Toronto rapper, born Aubrey Drake Graham, filed a lawsuit against the label for defamation and harassment claims in response to Kendrick Lamar’s widely popular diss track “Not Like Us.”
He asserted that the song was “designed to convey the specific, unmistakable, and false factual allegation that Drake is a criminal pedophile, and to suggest that the public should resort to vigilante justice in response.”
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In a motion filed on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, UMG refuted those allegations, asserting that the song was not defamatory but rather a “rhetorical hyperbole” that is protected by the First Amendment, as reported by Variety. They also asserted that he initiated this lawsuit because he lost the 2024 rap dispute with Lamar.
The entertainment company has signed both rappers.
The label claimed that he “lost a rap battle that he provoked and in which he willingly participated.” He has filed a lawsuit against his own record label in an attempt to alleviate his distress, rather than embracing the loss as the unbothered rap artist he frequently portrays. Plaintiff’s Complaint is entirely without validity and should be dismissed with prejudice.
The motion asserts that the lawsuit “disregards the other Drake and Lamar diss tracks that surrounded ‘Not Like Us’ as well as the conventions of the diss track genre” due to the fact that it was a rap dispute. They stated that “diss tracks are a celebrated and popular artform that revolves around outrageous insults, and they would be severely chilled if Drake’s suit were allowed to proceed.”
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The motion also highlights the lawsuit’s hypocrisy, as Drake signed a petition in 2022 that condemned prosecutors for using an artist’s lyrics against them in criminal cases.
The filing stated that Drake was correct at the time and is incorrect now. “The unsubstantiated allegations against UMG in the Complaint are merely Drake’s attempt to cover up for his unsuccessful rap battle with Lamar.”
The Compton native sings, “Say Drake, I hear you like them young.” She then references the 2021 album “Certified Lover Boy” by the “DeGrassi: The Next Generation” star and refers to him as a “certified pedophile.” The single’s artwork depicted an aerial view of Drake’s Toronto estate, with sex offender markers encircling it.
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“The image of Drake’s Toronto mansion with 13 sex offender markers is hyperbolic and exaggerated; no reasonable viewer would believe it to be real,” UMG stated. “In addition, an examination of the broader context reveals that ‘Not Like Us’ is associated with well-known controversies that Drake himself acknowledged and perpetuated, as evidenced by his previous lyrics.”
Drake’s earlier work in the feud, “Taylor Made Freestyle,” was cited by The New York Times. In this track, the hip-hop artist employed artificial intelligence to rap in the voice of Tupac Shakur. In the song, the faux-Pac advises Lamar to: “Talk about him liking young girls, that’s a gift from me / You heard it on the Budden podcast, it’s gotta be true.”
Michael J. Gottlieb, Drake’s attorney, stated in a statement to the outlet that the label “wants to falsely portray this as a rap battle in order to divert the attention of its shareholders, artists, and the public from the simple truth: a greedy company is finally being held accountable for profiting from dangerous misinformation that has already led to multiple acts of violence.”
He further stated that “this motion is a desperate attempt by UMG to evade accountability; however, we are certain that the case will continue to uncover UMG’s extensive history of endangering, abusing, and exploiting its artists.”
Lamar was awarded five Grammys for “Not Like Us” in February, including Song of the Year. He also performed the song during the intermission of Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans.
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