Universal Music Group (UMG) has responded to Drake’s lawsuit by basically calling him a sore loser in a “rap battle that he provoked” against his nemesis Kendrick Lamar after the latter released his popular diss record, “Not Like Us.”
According to NBC News, UMG is looking
to dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice that Drake filed against the company for releasing “Not Like Us” last year.In a motion to dismiss, filed March 17, attorneys for the recording label cited that Drake “lost a rap battle that he provoked and in which he willingly participated.” Both recording artists are signed with labels that have distribution deals with UMG.
UMG also stated that “instead of accepting the loss like the unbothered rap artist he often claims to be, he has sued his own record label in a misguided attempt to salve his wounds.”
Drake filed a lawsuit against UMG and iHeartMedia accusing the entities of artificially inflating the numbers and participating in a pay-per-click scheme to help promote the single with iHeartMedia, the parent company of iHeartRadio.
The suit also allegeed that the two entities intentionally harmed the recording artist’s reputation. Drake recently settled the legal action he took against iHeartMedia. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
In UMG’s recent filing, the label said that the diss records, like ones before them, featured “hyperbolic insults.” For example, the label observed that Drake accused Lamar of domestic abuse against his wife and that Lamar’s manager is really the father of Lamar’s son with his wife. “But now, after losing the rap battle, Drake claims that ‘Not Like Us’ is defamatory. It is not.”
UMG also accused Drake of having “goaded” Lamar into responding to another diss track he recorded, “Push Ups,” while telling his rival that he was taking too long to answer the latest diss track. Drake also released an additional diss record, “Taylor Made Freestyle,” which was taken down after the estate of Tupac Shakur threatened to sue Drake for using artificial intelligence to re-create the late rapper’s voice.
UMG also used Drake’s words against him in the latest filing.
In 2022, the OVO artist wrote an open letter against prosecutors using rappers’ lyrics against them in court cases by writing “the trend of prosecutors using artists’ creative expression against them” by treating rap lyrics as literal fact.
“Drake was right then and is wrong now,” UMG wrote. The label stated that Drake’s “unjustified claims against UMG are no more than Drake’s attempt to save face for his unsuccessful rap battle with Lamar.”
In response to UMG’s motion to dismiss the
filing, Drake’s attorney, Mike Gottlieb, said, “UMG wants to pretend that this is about a rap battle in order to distract its shareholders, artists, and the public from a simple truth: a greedy company is finally being held responsible for profiting from dangerous misinformation that has already resulted in multiple acts of violence.”“This motion is a desperate ploy by UMG to avoid accountability, but we have every confidence that this case will proceed and continue to uncover UMG’s long history of endangering, abusing and taking advantage of its artists,” Gottlieb added.
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