Drake Sues UMG Recordings, Inc. for defamation of Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Not Like Us’

CNN
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Drake is fighting with his own record label over a song that is the key to a now legendary hip-hop feud.

In a lawsuit against UMG Recordings, Inc., filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the Canadian rapper and actor has accused the record label of defamation in connection with the release and promotion of Kendrick Lamar’s hit “Not Like Us “. ” Drake is asking for damages and punishment. Lamar is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

The case begins with what Drake says happened in May 2024, when a security guard he had hired was shot on the grounds of his Canadian property.

“In the middle of the night on May 7, 2024, an armed group of assailants drove up to the Toronto home where Drake and his family lived. Drake was inside,” according to the suit. “The car stopped in front of the residence, someone yelled ‘F**k Drake.’ , and at least one gunman began to open fire. A bullet went through the security gate and hit Drake’s front door; another bullet hit and wounded a security guard, who was also one of Drake’s friends.”

The suit says it took nearly 30 minutes for an ambulance to arrive, during which time bystanders “worked to keep the man alive by applying pressure to the gunshot wound with towels.”

While the guard was eventually taken to the hospital and survived, the suit details several incidents over the following days where intruders attempted to enter Drake’s residence.

“In the two decades leading up to May 2024, although Drake was constantly in the public eye, nothing like these events had ever happened to him and his family,” the suit states. “But these events were not accidental.”

According to his complaint, Drake alleges that the attempted burglary occurred as a result of UMG, “the largest music company in the world” and Drake’s label for more than a decade, launching a campaign to make “a viral hit out of a rap track that falsely accuses Drake for being a pedophile and calls for violent retaliation against him.”

Lamar’s “Not Like Us” was the breakout song in the rap battle between the two artists that played out in May 2024. Their feud appears to have started a year earlier when rapper J. Cole collaborated with Drake on the song “First Person Shooter.”

On that track, Cole refers to himself, Lamar and Drake as “the big three” of rap. Drake compared his own popularity in the game to the stardom of late singer Michael Jackson. Lamar apparently took exception to the comparisons, hitting back on a collaborative track with Future and Metro Boomin that caught fire in March 2024, titled “Like That.”

Lamar makes it clear on the song that there is no “Big three” just “Big me.” He throws himself as Prince to Drake’s Jackson, noting that the former outlived the latter.

“Like That” is a cut on the album “We Don’t Trust You” that many believe is filled with disses directed at Drake. The apparent jabs surprised some listeners, as Drake and Future have been longtime collaborators.

Things got more heated when Future and Metro Boomin released the follow-up “We Still Don’t Trust You” as Billboard magazine declared is “filled with Drake disses, not only from Future, but also from The Weeknd and A$AP Rocky.”

Cole released “7 Minute Drill” on a surprise project “Might Delete Later”, coming after Lamar, only to later declare the song lame. He removed it from the streaming services, publicly apologized and has been quiet ever since.

Things intensified between Drake and Lamar as the pair quickly dropped several diss tracks aimed at the other. But Lamar, who made history in 2018 by becoming the first rapper to win a prestigious Pulitzer Prize for his album “DAMN.”, was the perceived winner of the crowd.

In his suit, Drake alleges that while UMG “enriched itself and its shareholders by exploiting Drake’s music for years and knowing the vicious allegations against Drake were false, UMG chose corporate greed over the safety and well-being of its artists.”

The lawsuit claims that “Not Like Us” is “intended to convey the specific, unmistakable and false factual allegation that Drake is a criminal pedophile and to suggest that the public should resort to vigilante justice in response.”

“The recording is defamatory because its lyrics, its album art (the “Image”) and its music video (the “Video”) all promote the false and malicious narrative that Drake is a pedophile,” the suit states.

CNN has reached out to representatives for Drake and Lamar for comment.

Drake is currently represented by Republic Records, a division of UMG, and Lamar is currently represented by Interscope records, also a division of UMG.

“Not only are these allegations untrue, but the notion that we would attempt to damage the reputation of any artist—let alone Drake—is illogical. We have invested heavily 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,” a UMG spokesperson said in a statement to CNN on Wednesday. “Throughout his career, Drake has intentionally and successfully used UMG to distribute his music and poetry to engage in conventionally outrageous back-and-forth ‘rap battles’ to express his feelings for other artists. He now seeks to weaponize the legal process to silence an artist’s creative expression and to seek damages from UMG for distributing that artist’s music.”

“We have not and do not engage in defamation – against any individual. At the same time, we will vigorously defend this lawsuit to protect our people and our reputation, as well as any artist who may directly or indirectly become a frivolous target of lawsuits in order not to have done something more to write a song,” the statement concluded.

In November 2024, Drake filed a petition in a New York court alleging that UMG conspired to artificially boost “Not Like Us” on Spotify. Drake met with company representatives on Tuesday,” according to Black, citing court documents.

Lamar has enjoyed a wave of success since the release of “Not Like Us,” including being announced as the featured performer for the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show. He has an upcoming tour planned with collaborator SZA.

This story has been updated to include a new statement from UMG.