Universal Music Group Recordings Inc. has filed a motion to dismiss Drake’s defamation lawsuit over the recording label’s release of Kendrick Lamar’s hit track “Not Like Us.”
In January, Drake accused UMG — which he is also signed to — of spreading the “false and malicious narrative” that he is a pedophile with the release of Lamar’s song, which includes the lyrics: “Say, Drake, I hear you like em’ young.”
Lamar is not named in the lawsuit; however, Drake additionally claimed that UMG knew the accusations were false but chose corporate greed over the safety and well-being of its artists.
Branding Drake’s lawsuit a “misguided attempt to salve his wounds” in a new filing seen by The Independent, UMG requested the rapper’s complaint be “dismissed without prejudice.”
“Plaintiff, one of the most successful recording artists of all time, lost a rap battle that he provoked and in which he willingly participated. Instead 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,” reads the motion filed to the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
It goes on to recount the details of Drake and Lamar’s infamous rap battle, which kicked off in the spring of 2024.
“Over the course of approximately two months, they exchanged increasingly vitriolic and incendiary ‘diss tracks,’ sometimes responding within hours of each other. Drake encouraged the feud,” UMG claimed.
“For example, when he felt that Lamar was taking too long to respond, Drake released a second recording in which he goaded Lamar to continue the public rap battle. Lamar did just that, and collectively Drake and Lamar released a total of nine tracks taking aim at each other. Multiple commentators declared Lamar to be the ‘winner’ of the battle.”
The filing further states that “Drake has been pleased to use UMG’s platform to promote tracks leveling similarly incendiary attacks at Lamar, including, most significantly, that Lamar engaged in domestic abuse [in his song ‘Family Matters’].”
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“But now, after losing the rap battle, Drake claims that ‘Not Like Us’ is defamatory. It is not,” it continued.
It argues that because Drake’s lawsuit is almost entirely focused on “Not Like Us,” it “disregards the other Drake and Lamar diss tracks that surround ‘Not Like Us’ as well as the conventions of the diss track genre, and, thus, critically ignores the context of the dispute.”
In a statement shared with The Independent, Drake’s lawyer, Mike Gottlieb, called UMG’s motion “a desperate ploy to avoid accountability.”
“UMG wants to pretend that this is about a rap battle in order to distract its shareholders, artists and the public from a simple truth: a greedy company is finally being held responsible for profiting from dangerous misinformation that has already resulted in multiple acts of violence,” he wrote.
“This motion is a desperate ploy by UMG to avoid accountability, but we have every confidence that this case will proceed and continue to uncover UMG’s long history of endangering, abusing and taking advantage of its artists.”
In February, Drake settled a separate lawsuit against iHeartMedia, in which he alleged that the Texas-based radio network had received illegal payments from UMG to boost radio airplay for “Not Like Us.”
The Canadian rapper had similarly sued UMG, claiming it used a network of bots, in conjunction with a so-called pay-to-play scheme, to “manipulate and saturate the streaming services and airwaves” with “Not Like Us.” He later dropped the suit.
“The suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue,” a UMG spokesperson said in a statement at the time. “We employ the highest ethical practices in our marketing and promotional campaigns. No amount of contrived and absurd legal arguments in this pre-action submission can mask the fact that fans choose the music they want to hear.”
