Drake Sues UMG Alleging Defamation After Kendrick Lamar Diss Monitor

• Drake sued his personal label, UMG Recordings, Inc, alleging defamation.
• He accused the label of approving and publishing Kendrick Lamar’s diss monitor, which the swimsuit stated included false and harmful allegations.
• UMG stated it’s combating the case to guard different artists for “having completed nothing greater than write a music.”

Drake filed a lawsuit in opposition to his personal label, UMG Recordings, Inc., amid his ongoing beef with Kendrick Lamar.

The rapper, whose full identify is Aubrey Drake Graham, accused Common Music Group of approving and publishing Lamar’s diss monitor “Not Like Us,” which the grievance says consists of allegations that UMG “understood weren’t solely false, however harmful.”

The music “falsely accuses Drake of being a pedophile and requires violent retribution in opposition to him,” based on the lawsuit filed within the US District Courtroom for the Southern District of New York on Wednesday.

“Though 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,” Drake, via his attorneys, said within the lawsuit.

Representatives for Drake and UMG didn’t instantly reply to Enterprise Insider’s request for remark.

UMG instructed The New York Instances that it intends to battle the lawsuit to guard different artists for “having completed nothing greater than write a music.”

The grievance pointed to 1 incident in Might during which somebody opened hearth exterior his Toronto residence, putting the entrance door and wounding a safety guard, who the lawsuit described as “one in all Drake’s mates.”

Within the days following, the lawsuit stated there have been two tried break-ins at his property, one in all which concerned a person who dug underneath the property’s gate together with his naked palms and “managed to yell racist slurs and threats in opposition to Drake earlier than being escorted off the property.”

The grievance underscored that Lamar was not named as a defendant. It stated UMG’s actions in publishing the monitor had been the reason for the string of incidents.

The grievance additional stated that UMG didn’t assist Drake when he confronted firm executives in regards to the scenario.

The lawsuit is one other escalation within the ongoing beef between two chart-topping rappers that began greater than 10 years in the past.

What started as an trade of refined pictures and coded lyrics of their songs become an all-out musical brawl final 12 months after Lamar as soon as once more declared himself the king of hip-hop in a collaborative monitor with rapper Future and producer Metro Boomin. Within the music, he instantly responded to Drake’s 2023 monitor, “First Individual Shooter.”

Inside a month, Drake and Lamar exchanged a number of searing diss tracks, at one level going past rap and taking pictures at every others’ character and private lives.

Music critics and listeners broadly noticed “Not Like Us” as the ultimate, decisive blow within the rap beef because the music obtained widespread acclaim and remained on Billboard’s primary spot on the Scorching Rap Songs chart for 21 weeks, breaking a report that was set by Lil Nas X’s “Previous City Highway.”

The Compton-born rapper took a victory lap in June when he hosted a one-night live performance in Inglewood, California, the place he carried out “Not Like Us” six occasions in a row.

The rivalry escalated in November when Drake concerned the courts by submitting a authorized petition — which comes earlier than a lawsuit — that accused UMG and Spotify of devising a scheme with a view to make “Not Like Us” a viral hit on the expense of the Toronto rapper.

UMG beforehand denied the claims and referred to as Drake’s submitting “contrived” and “absurd.”

In a second authorized petition from November, Drake attorneys’ hinted at defamation claims in opposition to Common and stated that the label ought to have prevented the discharge of Lamar’s “Not Like Us” because of the statements within the music.