After withdrawing a legal pre-action, Drake has now filed a lawsuit against Universal Music Group, accusing the company of boosting Kendrick Lamar’s track “Not Like Us.” The pre-action had originally included Spotify, but the streaming service is not a part of the suit. The legal action took place yesterday. Mind you, both Drake and Kendrick are signed to UMG.
Drake said UMG “approved, published, and launched a campaign to create a viral hit out of a rap track that falsely accuses Drake of being a pedophile and calls for violent retribution against him.” He also accused UMG of an illegal “scheme” to boost airplay and sales of “Not Like Us.”
Drake’s team accused UMG of using “Not Like Us” to devalue Drizzy’s popularity and reduce the value of his next contract with the company. The suit added, “This lawsuit is not about the artist who created ‘Not Like Us.’ It is, instead, entirely about UMG, the music company that decided to publish, promote, exploit, and monetize allegations that it understood were not only false, but dangerous.”
In a statement, UMG said in part, “Not only are these claims untrue, but the notion that we would seek to harm the reputation of any artist — let alone Drake — is illogical. We have invested massively in his music and our employees around the world have worked tirelessly for many years to help him achieve historic commercial and personal financial success. Throughout his career, Drake has intentionally and successfully used UMG to distribute his music and poetry to engage in conventionally outrageous back-and-forth ‘rap battles’ to express his feelings about other artists. He now seeks to weaponize the legal process to silence an artist’s creative expression and to seek damages from UMG for distributing that artist’s music.”
I guess we’ll see in court!
