Drake has escalated his ongoing authorized battle in opposition to his document label, Common Music Group (UMG), by submitting defamation lawsuit in opposition to the mother or father document label he and rival Kendrick Lamar are signed to.
The Toronto rapper filed a federal lawsuit within the Southern District of New York on Wednesday, Jan. 15, and referred to the discharge of Lamar’s diss monitor, “Not Like Us,” for instance of ” company greed over the security and well-being of its artists,” in line with The New York Instances.
In his submitting, Drake’s group says the diss monitor aimed on the Canadian rapper spreads the “false and malicious narrative” that he’s a pedophile.
“On Might 4, 2024, UMG permitted, printed, and launched a marketing campaign to create a viral hit out of a rap monitor that falsely accuses Drake of being a pedophile and requires violent retribution in opposition to him,” the criticism reads. “Despite the fact that UMG enriched itself and its shareholders by exploiting Drake’s music for years, and knew that the salacious allegations in opposition to Drake had been false, UMG selected company greed over the security and well-being of its artists.”
The submitting states that Drake is “not a pedophile” and he has “by no means engaged in any acts that might require him to be ‘positioned on neighborhood watch’.”
“Drake has by no means engaged in sexual relations with a minor. Drake has by no means been charged with, or convicted of, any felony acts in any respect,” the swimsuit reads.
The lawsuit goes on to element a capturing at Drake’s dwelling a number of days after the tune was launched, leading to a safety guard being severely injured .
“Through the practically half-hour it took for the ambulance to reach, Drake and others labored to maintain the person alive by making use of stress to the gunshot wound with towels. Blood was in every single place,” the submitting reads.
In keeping with the swimsuit, nothing like that had occurred to Drake or his household throughout the twenty years that he’s been working within the music trade.
The lawsuit additionally states that the a number of break-in makes an attempt on his dwelling that occurred following the discharge of the tune had been attributable to UMG’s actions.
“With the palpable bodily risk to Drake’s security and the bombardment of on-line harassment, Drake fears for the security and safety of himself, his household, and his associates,” in line with the brand new swimsuit. “After the assaults on his dwelling, Drake pulled his son out of the elementary faculty he attended in Toronto resulting from security considerations, and as soon as faculty ended for the summer season, Drake organized for his son and mom to depart Toronto fully.”
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Drake’s group is making it recognized that the brand new lawsuit isn’t directed at Lamar and is clearly inserting the blame on Common for releasing, distributing and selling the tune.
“This lawsuit isn’t in regards to the artist who created ‘Not Like Us,’” the swimsuit reads. “It’s, as a substitute, fully about UMG, the music firm that determined to publish, promote, exploit, and monetize allegations that it understood weren’t solely false, however harmful.”
Common distributes each Drake and Lamar’s music however the swimsuit claims that as a result of Drake’s present cope with the label is nearing the top of its time period, the corporate is trying to devalue his music and popularity in an effort to realize more-favorable phrases in any renegotiation.
On Tuesday, Jan. 14, the 38-year-old rapper withdrew his authorized motion, backtracking on his claims that UMG and Spotify conspired to falsely enhance the streaming numbers for “Not Like Us” after the allegations had been denied by each corporations.
In earlier allegations that UMG referred to as “ offensive and unfaithful ,” the submitting stated the document firm “launched a marketing campaign to control and saturate the streaming companies and airwaves with a tune, ‘Not Like Us,’ with a purpose to make that tune go viral, together with by utilizing ‘bots’ and pay-to-play agreements.” It stated the corporate and Spotify “have a long-standing, symbiotic enterprise relationship” and alleges that UMG provided particular licensing charges to Spotify for the tune.
The petition additionally stated UMG has fired staff seen as loyal to Drake “in an obvious effort to hide its schemes.”
Lamar’s wildly standard single “Not Like Us,” was launched in Might as a part of a flurry of dueling tracks by the 2 artists and contains the lyrics, “Say, Drake, I hear you want ’em younger, You higher not ever go to cell block one.”
Lamar additionally referred to as Drake a “colonizer” and attributed his success to the various different rappers Drake has labored with. It has change into the primary diss monitor to succeed in one billion streams on Spotify, in line with figures listed on streaming service. It’s additionally nominated for 5 Grammy Awards, together with tune and document of the 12 months.
The feud between Drake and Lamar is among the many largest in hip-hop in recent times, with two of the style’s largest stars at its centre.
The 2 had been occasional collaborators greater than a decade in the past, however Lamar started taking public jabs at Drake beginning in 2013. The struggle escalated steeply earlier final 12 months.
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