American rapper Drake has filed a lawsuit against record label Universal Music Group (UMG) for defamation alleging that the record label promoted Kendrick Lamar diss track \u201cNot Like Us\u201d even though it contained false allegations.<\/p>\n
According to AP Entertainment, the lawsuit alleges that UMG published and promoted that track which accused Drake, falsely, of pedophilia. The suit also alleges that the result was intruders shooting a security guard and two attempted break-ins at Drake\u2019s Toronto home, online hate and harassment, a hit to his reputation and a decrease in his brand\u2019s value before his contract renegotiation with UMG this year.<\/p>\n
Kendrick is not mentioned in the suit.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe lawsuit is not about the artist who created \u2018Not Like Us,\u2019\u201d the lawsuit says. \u201cIt 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
The suit further claims that UMG made large investments and used its connections to arrange for \u201cNot Like Us\u201d to be performed at next month\u2019s Super Bowl, where Lamar will be the halftime entertainment.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit, which is seeking a trial and an undisclosed amount of money for damages, also repeated allegations in other legal filings that UMG falsely pumped up the popularity of \u201cNot Like Us\u201d on streaming services.<\/p>\n
The track is nominated for five Grammys, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year.<\/p>\n
However, UMG has denied the allegations. In a statement shared online, the company said the claims were illogical.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only are these claims untrue, but the notion that we would seek to harm the reputation of any artist \u2014 let alone Drake \u2014 is illogical,\u201d the company said. \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
The company added: \u201cThroughout his career, Drake has intentionally and successfully used UMG to distribute his music and poetry to engage in conventionally outrageous back-and-forth \u2018rap battles\u2019 to express his feelings about other artists. He now seeks to weaponise the legal process to silence an artist\u2019s creative expression and to seek damages from UMG for distributing that artist\u2019s music. \u201d<\/p>\n
The lawsuit comes after what critics have called the biggest feud in hip-hop in recent years.<\/p>\n
While the two rappers, both represented by UMG, began dissing each other in public in 2013, the feud escalated with the release of several tracks made public back to back in 2024 from both camps. However, the diss track \u201cNot Like Us\u201d by Kendrick emerged the most popular mostly because of its damning accusations.<\/p>\n
Through the suit, Drake is seeking a trial and an undisclosed amount of money for damages to his reputation.<\/p>\n
The post Drake sues record label UMG for defamation<\/a> appeared first on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" American rapper Drake has filed a lawsuit against record label Universal Music Group (UMG) for defamation alleging that the record label promoted Kendrick Lamar diss track \u201cNot Like Us\u201d even though it contained false allegations. According to AP Entertainment, the lawsuit alleges that UMG published and promoted that track which accused Drake, falsely, of pedophilia. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107794\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}