Drake has filed a defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG), the record label he and rival Kendrick Lamar share, over the latter artist’s diss track Not Like Us.
The lawsuit, filed in a New York federal court on Wednesday, comes shortly after the Canadian rapper born Aubrey Drake Graham withdrew a legal challenge he made against UMG and Spotify, alleging they artificially inflated the popularity of Lamar’s track.
That filing – not a lawsuit, but a petition for documents in preparation for a potential lawsuit filing – accused UMG and Spotify of trying to “manipulate and saturate the streaming services and airwaves”. Lawyers for the rapper had claimed that UMG paid influencers and radio stations to play the track, Not Like Us, which topped the US charts and proved to be the hammer blow in the Drake-Lamar feud between March and May last year.
The new defamation suit accuses UMG of defamation and harassment, calling the release and promotion of Lamar’s hit track, with lyrics labeling Drake a “certified pedophile”, an example of valuing “corporate greed over the safety and wellbeing of its artists”.
The suit alleges that UMG “approved, published and launched a campaign to create a viral hit out of a rap track” that was “intended 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”.
Noting that the track’s artwork featured a picture of Drake’s house with markers meant to identify the homes of registered sex offenders, the suit refers to a shooting that occurred outside the residence days after the track’s release, injuring a security guard. It refers to this incident, as well as two attempted trespassings in the subsequent days, as “the 2024 equivalent of Pizzagate”.
Drake is represented in this case by Michael J Gottlieb, a lawyer who has previously represented the owner of a Washington DC pizzeria targeted by “Pizzagate” pedophilia conspiracy theorists in 2016, as well as election workers falsely accused by Rudy Giuliani of aiding a fictional plot to steal the 2020 presidential election for Joe Biden.
UMG was not immediately available for comment.
In the November filing, Drake alleged that UMG used bots to stream Not Like Us on Spotify in huge numbers, “and deceive consumers into believing the song was more popular than it was in reality”. UMG was accused of paying Apple “to have its voice-activated digital assistant, Siri, purposely misdirect users to Not Like Us” and had “been taking steps in an apparent effort to conceal its schemes, including, but not limited to, by terminating employees associated with or perceived as having loyalty to Drake”.
Both Drake and Lamar release music through UMG, Drake via Republic Records and Lamar via Interscope.
UMG, which called the allegations “contrived and absurd” said: “The suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue.” Spotify also denied the allegations, saying: “Spotify has no economic incentive for users to stream Not Like Us over any of Drake’s tracks.”
In New York court documents seen by the Guardian, Drake withdrew that request, with the document reading: “Petitioner hereby voluntarily discontinues this special proceeding as to all respondents without costs to any party.”
Drake previously filed another petition in Texas, alleging UMG paid the radio group iHeartRadio to play Not Like Us, and that UMG allowed the release of the track despite knowing it contained accusations of Drake being a “certified paedophile”, which Drake denied. That petition remains active.
After numerous diss tracks from each rapper, Lamar was generally considered the winner. Not Like Us, which also alleged Drake was a “coloniser” leeching off the hip-hop scene, scored the highest single-day and week-long streams of any rap song on Spotify.
Drake has released relatively little music after the feud: four tracks in August, plus two appearances on Camila Cabello’s album and another with Mexican-American group Fuerza Regida. But he returned to solo material earlier this month with the freestyle Fighting Irish, which looked back on the Lamar feud and friendships lost over it.
“The world fell in love with the gimmicks, even my brothers got tickets / Seemed like they loved every minute / Just know this shit is personal to us, and it wasn’t just business … I was sadly mistaken, the loyalty wasn’t a given”, he rapped. He also referred to the “coloniser” accusation, rapping “I’m starin’ at my daddy” – Drake’s father is African American.
