Drake’s ongoing legal battle with his label, Universal Music Group, has escalated. The artist filed a lawsuit in federal court today, accusing UMG of harming his reputation and endangering him for profit. The suit stems from the diss track “Not Like Us” by Kendrick Lamar, another UMG artist. Drake’s legal complaint also again accuses UMG of using bots on Spotify and other streaming platforms, and payola to make the song more popular.
“On May 4, 2024, UMG approved, published, and launched a campaign to create a viral hit out of a rap track that falsely accuses Drake of being a pedophile and calls for violent retribution against him,” the complaint reads. “Even though UMG enriched itself and its shareholders by exploiting Drake’s music for years, and knew that the salacious allegations against Drake were false, UMG chose corporate greed over the safety and well-being of its artists.”
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Image: Aubrey Drake Graham vs. UMG Recordings
The lawsuit details a shooting at Drake’s (real name: Aubrey Graham) home just a few days after the song was released, during which a security guard was injured. Multiple break-ins occurred in the following days, which the lawsuit says were caused by UMG’s actions.
Why would UMG pit two of its own artists against each other? Drake’s team has a theory:
UMG’s actions are motivated, at least in part, by UMG’s desire to best position itself in negotiations with Kendrick Lamar in 2024 and Drake in 2025. With respect to Lamar, on information and belief, UMG was incentivized to prove that it could maximize Lamar’s sales—by any means necessary—after only being able to get him to sign a short-term exclusive contract. UMG wanted Lamar to see its value on an expedited timeframe in order to convince Lamar to resign exclusively and for a longer period of time. As to Drake, in 2024, his contract was nearing fulfillment. On information and belief, UMG anticipated that extending Drake’s contract would come at a high cost to UMG; as such, it was incentivized to devalue Drake’s music and brand in order to gain leverage in negotiations for an extension
Lamar is not named as a defendant in the suit; instead, Drake’s legal team pins the blame on UMG for releasing the song despite knowing the song’s “allegations are unequivocally false.”
“Drake is not a pedophile. Drake has never engaged in any acts that would require he be “placed on neighborhood watch.” Drake has never engaged in sexual relations with a minor. Drake has never been charged with, or convicted of, any criminal acts whatsoever,” the suit reads.
The suit follows a petition filed in November in which Drake accuses UMG and Spotify of artificially inflating the success of “Not Like Us” using payola and streaming bots. The petition — which itself isn’t a lawsuit but a precursor — was withdrawn this week. But the suit filed today includes similar allegations of “pay-for-play” schemes to get “Not Like Us” played on radio stations and promoted on streaming platforms. The suit also again accuses UMG of using bots to “artificially inflate the spread” of the song. It cites a “whistleblower” who claimed he was paid $2,500 over Zelle “via third parties to use ‘bots’ to achieve 30,000,000 streams on Spotify in the initial days following the Recording’s release.”
As The New York Times notes, Drake has enlisted Michael J. Gottlieb, the lawyer that represented the owner of the restaurant embroiled in the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory. Drake’s complaint draws parallels between the shooting at the artist’s home and the shooting at the restaurant, calling it “the 2024 equivalent of ‘Pizzagate.’”
“The online response was similarly violent and hateful. An avalanche of online hate speech has branded Drake as a sex offender and pedophile, among other epithets,” the complaint reads.
UMG did not immediately respond to a request for comment.