Kendrick Lamar, Drake
Gregory Shamus/Getty Images; Mark Blinch/Getty Images
Drake‘s label, Universal Music Group, is blasting the rapper as a bitter loser who wants his rap battles one-sided.
In a new motion to dismiss Drake’s defamation lawsuit against his own label, UMG says the Canadian-born rapper levied his own “vitriolic and incendiary” diss tracks against nemesis Kendrick Lamar before Lamar released his “hyperbolic” reply “Not Like Us” on the men’s shared label. In his Grammy-winning song, Lamar calls Drake and his friends “certified pedophiles” who should “be registered and placed on neighborhood watch.” UMG says Drake cheered the rivalry, at least until the public declared Lamar the clear winner.
“Drake encouraged the feud. 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,” UMG’s new filings in federal court in Manhattan states. The music giant, which represents both artists, says Drake is talking out of both sides of his mouth.
“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 and that one of Lamar’s business partners and managers is the true father of Lamar’s son. But now, after losing the rap battle, Drake claims that ‘Not Like Us’ is defamatory. It is not,” the new paperwork states.
Drake’s lead lawyer for the legal battle, Mike Gottlieb, says UMG is the one making excuses. “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,” Gottlieb said in a statement Monday. “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.”
Drake’s lawsuit opened with several paragraphs listing incidents at his Toronto home in the days after “Not Like Us” was released. On May 7, 2024, a car stopped outside Drake’s residence, someone yelled “Fuck Drake,” and “at least one gunman began to open fire,” with one bullet hitting Drake’s front door and another seriously wounding a security guard, the complaint states. The next day, an intruder dug a hole under a security fence and yelled “racist slurs and threats against Drake before being escorted off the property,” the filing says.
For its part, UMG focused its filing on the underlying law, saying artistic expression is safeguarded by the First Amendment. It argues that diss tracks are a “popular and celebrated art form centered around outrageous insults, and they would be severely chilled if Drake’s suit were permitted to proceed.” The company says Drake’s related claims of second-degree harassment and business law violations are similarly misguided.
“Less than three years ago, Drake himself signed a public petition criticizing ‘the trend of prosecutors using artists’ creative expression against them’ by treating rap lyrics as literal fact,” the new filing states. “As Drake recognized, when it comes to rap, ‘the final work is a product of the artist’s vision and imagination.’ … Drake was right then and is wrong now. The complaint’s unjustified claims against UMG are no more than Drake’s attempt to save face for his unsuccessful rap battle with Lamar. The court should grant UMG’s motion and dismiss the complaint with prejudice.”
Drake, whose legal name is Aubrey Drake Graham, filed his 81-page lawsuit against UMG in January. He claimed UMG “unleashed every weapon in its arsenal” in a campaign to turn “Not Like Us” into a “viral hit.” He claimed the song was “intended to convey the specific, unmistakable, and false factual allegation that Drake is a criminal pedophile.”
The two A-list rappers started their high-profile rap battle in spring 2024, taking sly swipes at one another in various tracks. Things erupted into a full-blown lyrical war when Drake released “Family Matters” in May, insinuating that Lamar had cheated on his fiancée and was physically violent with her. Lamar immediately responded with the back-to-back drops of “Meet the Grahams” and “Not Like Us,” with the latter’s hook of “Certified Lover Boy, certified pedophile” becoming an instant and ubiquitous viral sensation.
The song became the best-selling rap recording of 2024 and won Grammy Awards including Song of the Year. Lamar performed the song at the 2025 Superbowl halftime show to a record audience, and it was later parodied on “Saturday Night Live” and during a joke delivered by Conan O’Brien at the Academy Awards.
From Rolling Stone US.