Drake sues Universal Music for defamation over Kendrick Lamar's diss track Not Like Us

A major event in popular culture in 2024 has been the high-profile feud between Drake and Kendrick Lamar, with the two rap superstars engaging in a heated battle through escalating diss tracks. While some have criticized the dispute as ugly, most observers believe Lamar has clearly gained the upper hand.

Lamar’s decisive blow came with “Not Like Us,” a track that quickly topped the charts, featuring sharp lyrics that labeled Drake a “certified pedophile” and a “colonizer.” Now, ahead of his upcoming Australian tour, Drake, whose real name is Aubrey Drake Graham, is taking further legal action against Lamar.

Drake is suing Universal Music Group (UMG), the record label for both him and Lamar, accusing it of defamation and harassment. A lawsuit filed in New York on Wednesday alleges that UMG launched a “campaign to manufacture a viral hit” that was “designed to convey the clear, unequivocal and false accusation that Drake is a pedophile and to suggest that the public should take vigilante action.”

The suit claims that the release and promotion of “Not Like Us”—which has now surpassed one billion streams on Spotify and is on track to become one of Triple J’s Hottest 100 songs—embodies a value system where “corporate greed trumps the safety and well-being of its artists.” The suit also points out that the song’s cover art used a photo of Drake’s Toronto mansion, marked with red pins indicating the residences of registered sex offenders, and that days after “Not Like Us” was released, a shooting occurred at the property, injuring a security guard. The lawsuit refers to this incident, as well as two subsequent trespassing incidents in the following days, as “Pizza Gate 2024.”

“This lawsuit is not against the artist who created ‘Not Like Us,’” the suit reads, “but rather is solely against UMG, the music company that decided to publish, promote, exploit and profit from accusations they knew to be false and dangerous.” The suit comes 24 hours after Drake withdrew a separate legal challenge against UMG and Spotify launched in November, which accused the companies of colluding to artificially inflate the popularity of Lamar’s songs.

In that case, the rapper’s lawyers argued that UMG attempted to “manipulate and saturate streaming services and radio stations” by using bots to generate additional plays and paying radio stations to play “Not Like Us” in order to create “a false impression that the song is more popular than it actually is.” UMG said in a strongly worded statement on Wednesday that “these allegations are not only untrue, but the idea that we would attempt to damage the reputation of any artist, let alone Drake, is illogical.”

“We have invested heavily in his music, and our people around the world have worked tirelessly for years to help him achieve historic commercial and personal financial success.” As one of the most commercially successful hip-hop artists of his generation, Drake’s long-standing business relationship with UMG dates back to at least 2009. The label’s statement added, “Throughout his career, Drake has intentionally and successfully used UMG’s distribution of his music and poetry to engage in traditional, heated ‘rap battles’ to express his feelings about other artists.”

“He is now attempting to use legal process to suppress an artist’s creative expression and seek damages from UMG for distributing that artist’s music.” UMG stated that it will defend itself against the case, ensuring it will protect “any artist who may become the direct or indirect target of frivolous litigation simply for creating a song.”

The conflict between the 38-year-old multi-award-winning artist and singer Drake and the 37-year-old Pulitzer Prize-winning Compton artist Kendrick Lamar is one of the biggest in hip-hop history. The pair were occasional collaborators over a decade ago, but Lamar began publicly attacking Drake from 2013 when he recorded a guest rap on Big Sean’s track “Control.”

In the years that followed, the two rappers attacked each other less frequently, but the battle escalated in early 2024 when J. Cole appeared on Drake’s latest album on a track called “First Person Shooter.” The song debuted on the US singles chart and had J. Cole pondering who the current “big three” of rap might be. Kendrick responded with a surprise rap on producer Metro Boomin and rapper Future’s song “Like That,” rapping, “Fuck the big three … it’s just big me.”

Drake’s response was leaked and later premiered by DJ Akademiks on “Push Ups,” where he declared “you not in the big three.” After months of back-and-forth exchanges across eight quickly released tracks, with increasingly aggressive lyrical attacks, Lamar released “Not Like Us,” which included the lyrics “Say, Drake, I heard you like ’em young, you better not ever go to Cell Block One.” The song—which, as Drake’s suit describes, “conceals insidious and dangerous lyrics behind a catchy beat and infectious chorus”—topped the charts in Australia and the US.

The song has garnered five Grammy nominations for next month’s awards, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year, which could add to Lamar’s 17 previous Grammy wins. The following week, Lamar is set to headline the Super Bowl halftime show, which is seen as another win following the release of GNX, his sixth surprise studio album since the Drake feud, which topped the charts.

The usually prolific Drake has released relatively little music in 2024 other than a string of diss tracks aimed at Lamar. He has made two appearances on Camila Cabello’s latest album and another with Mexican-American group Guerza Regida. However, earlier this month, he returned with “Fighting Irish,” a freestyle that reflected on his conflict with Lamar. “The world fell in love with the gimmick, even my brothers bought the ticket/They seem to be loving every minute/To know this shit’s personal for us, it’s more than business,” he raps.

Drake is set to arrive in Australia early next month for his first national tour of the country in eight years. He will play multiple arena shows in Perth and Melbourne, and a fifth Sydney concert and a third Brisbane show were added this week to meet demand.