... and we thought 2024 was the year of rap beef
Universal Music Group has weighed in on a new defamation lawsuit launched by Canadian superstar Drake yesterday, calling the rapper’s claims “illogical” and accusing him of using the publishing group to aid in his “conventionally outrageous back-and-forth ‘rap battles’”.
The scathing statement follows yesterday’s news that Drake had withdrawn a petition accusing UMG and Spotify of conspiring to artificially increase streams on Kendrick Lamar’s hit diss track “Not Like Us”, only to be followed up with new legal action against UMG.
The fresh lawsuit 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 paedophile, and to suggest that the public should resort to vigilante justice in response”. In particular, the suit refers to the “Not Like Us” line “Certified Loverboy, certified paedophile” as an example of UMG “valuing “corporate greed over the safety and wellbeing of its artists”.
The lawsuit also clarifies that the legal action is targeted at UMG for distributing and marketing “Not Like Us”, not Lamar, who wrote and recorded the track. “This lawsuit is not about the artist who created ‘Not Like Us,’” the filing reads. “It is, instead, entirely about UMG, the music company that decided to publish, promote, exploit and monetise allegations that it understood were not only false, but dangerous.”
In response, a UMG spokesperson told Variety: “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,” the spokesperson continued. “He now seeks to weaponise the legal process to silence an artist’s creative expression and to seek damages from UMG for distributing that artist’s music.”
The now long-running dispute between Drake and his publishing group was made public in November 2024 when the rapper launched a “pre-action” move against UMG – to which Drake and Lamar are both signed – alleging that the music giant used payola and streaming bots in an illegal “scheme” to make “Not Like Us” appear “more popular than it was in reality.”
Both UMG and Spotify also rejected the claims by Drake’s Frozen Moments LLC when they were first launched. “The suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue,” announced UMG in a statement back in November. Meanwhile, a Spotify spokesperson said: “Spotify has no economic incentive for users to stream ‘Not Like Us’ over any of Drake’s tracks.”
The astronomical success of Lamar’s “Not Like Us”, and subsequent album GNX, led the Compton rapper to overtake Drake in streaming charts last year, as well as breaking the record for most single-day streams of a hip-hop track on Spotify – a record that was previously held by Drake and Lil Baby’s “Girls Want Girls”. Both rappers, however, still sit in Spotify’s top 20 streamed artists globally.
This article has been updated