Drake Sues Universal Music Group Over ‘Not Like Us’

After flirting with the possibility for months, Drake is suing Universal Music Group for defamation and harassment over releasing Kendrick Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us.” Drake filed the suit January 15 against UMG, the label group that oversees both Lamar’s music and his own. “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 retribution against him,” reads the lawsuit obtained by Vulture. Drake’s attorneys argue the allegations in “Not Like Us” are false because UMG would not have worked with the rapper since 2009 if it knew he was a pedophile. Crucially, Drake is not suing Lamar over the actual lyrics, but rather claiming UMG put “corporate greed over the safety and well-being of its artists.”

The lawsuit cites the May 7 shooting of a security guard at Drake’s Toronto home — pictured on the cover of “Not Like Us” — as an example of violence incited by the song, released days earlier on May 4. After the shooting, “Drake and others labored to keep the man alive by applying pressure to the gunshot wound with towels,” per the lawsuit. Two other break-ins happened in the following days, according to the suit, and Drake also took his son out of school in Toronto over “safety concerns” from the song. The lawsuit says he “confronted” UMG about the song and those issues, but “UMG refused to do anything to help.” UMG previously said, “The suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue.”

Drake’s lawsuit claims UMG was incentivized to promote Lamar at his expense ahead of his upcoming contract renegotiations, “to reduce” Drake’s “bargaining leverage.” The lawsuit also doubles down on Drake’s previous claim that UMG paid third parties to promote the song and to fake streams with bots on Spotify. UMG’s promotional strategy, Drake argues, made Lamar’s allegedly defamatory claims “ubiquitous.” 

In a wrinkle, Drake is being represented by Michael J. Gottleib, who previously represented the owner of the pizza shop at center of the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theories and election workers falsely accused by Rudy Giuliani of attempting to “steal” the 2020 election. The lawsuit calls Drake’s case “the 2024 equivalent of ‘Pizzagate.’”