Drake has escalated his ongoing authorized battle towards his document label, Common Music Group (UMG), by submitting defamation lawsuit towards the dad or mum document label he and rival Kendrick Lamar are signed to.
The Toronto rapper filed a federal lawsuit within the Southern District of New York on Wednesday, Jan. 15, and referred to the discharge of Lamar’s diss monitor, “Not Like Us,” for instance of ” company greed over the security and well-being of its artists,” in line with The New York Occasions.
In his submitting, Drake’s staff says the diss monitor aimed on the Canadian rapper spreads the “false and malicious narrative” that he’s a pedophile.
“On Might 4, 2024, UMG accredited, printed, and launched a marketing campaign to create a viral hit out of a rap monitor that falsely accuses Drake of being a pedophile and requires violent retribution towards him,” the criticism reads. “Although UMG enriched itself and its shareholders by exploiting Drake’s music for years, and knew that the salacious allegations towards Drake have been false, UMG selected company greed over the security and well-being of its artists.”
The submitting states that Drake is “not a pedophile” and he has “by no means engaged in any acts that might require him to be ‘positioned on neighborhood watch’.”
“Drake has by no means engaged in sexual relations with a minor. Drake has by no means been charged with, or convicted of, any prison acts in anyway,” the swimsuit reads.
The lawsuit goes on to element a taking pictures at Drake’s dwelling just a few days after the tune was launched, leading to a safety guard being significantly injured .
“In the course of the almost half-hour it took for the ambulance to reach, Drake and others labored to maintain the person alive by making use of stress to the gunshot wound with towels. Blood was in all places,” the submitting reads.
In line with the swimsuit, nothing like that had occurred to Drake or his household through the 20 years that he’s been working within the music business.
The lawsuit additionally states that the a number of break-in makes an attempt on his dwelling that occurred following the discharge of the tune have been attributable to UMG’s actions.
“With the palpable bodily risk to Drake’s security and the bombardment of on-line harassment, Drake fears for the security and safety of himself, his household, and his associates,” in line with the brand new swimsuit. “After the assaults on his dwelling, Drake pulled his son out of the elementary faculty he attended in Toronto resulting from security issues, and as soon as faculty ended for the summer time, Drake organized for his son and mom to depart Toronto totally.”
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Drake’s staff is making it recognized that the brand new lawsuit isn’t directed at Lamar and is clearly putting the blame on Common for releasing, distributing and selling the tune.
“This lawsuit isn’t in regards to the artist who created ‘Not Like Us,’” the swimsuit reads. “It’s, as a substitute, totally about UMG, the music firm that determined to publish, promote, exploit, and monetize allegations that it understood weren’t solely false, however harmful.”
Common distributes each Drake and Lamar’s music however the swimsuit claims that as a result of Drake’s present take care of the label is nearing the top of its time period, the corporate is trying to devalue his music and popularity in an effort to realize more-favorable phrases in any renegotiation.
On Tuesday, Jan. 14, the 38-year-old rapper withdrew his authorized motion, backtracking on his claims that UMG and Spotify conspired to falsely enhance the streaming numbers for “Not Like Us” after the allegations have been denied by each corporations.
In earlier allegations that UMG known as “ offensive and unfaithful ,” the submitting mentioned the document firm “launched a marketing campaign to control and saturate the streaming providers and airwaves with a tune, ‘Not Like Us,’ with a purpose to make that tune go viral, together with by utilizing ‘bots’ and pay-to-play agreements.” It mentioned the corporate and Spotify “have a long-standing, symbiotic enterprise relationship” and alleges that UMG provided particular licensing charges to Spotify for the tune.
The petition additionally mentioned UMG has fired staff seen as loyal to Drake “in an obvious effort to hide its schemes.”
Lamar’s wildly fashionable single “Not Like Us,” was launched in Might as a part of a flurry of dueling tracks by the 2 artists and contains the lyrics, “Say, Drake, I hear you want ’em younger, You higher not ever go to cell block one.”
Lamar additionally known as Drake a “colonizer” and attributed his success to the numerous different rappers Drake has labored with. It has develop into the primary diss monitor to achieve one billion streams on Spotify, in line with figures listed on streaming service. It’s additionally nominated for 5 Grammy Awards, together with tune and document of the yr.
The feud between Drake and Lamar is among the many largest in hip-hop in recent times, with two of the style’s largest stars at its centre.
The 2 have been occasional collaborators greater than a decade in the past, however Lamar started taking public jabs at Drake beginning in 2013. The struggle escalated steeply earlier final yr.
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—with recordsdata from The Related Press and International Information
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