Kendrick Lamar set to perform on 2025 Super Bowl Halfime Show: Live updates

On By Littum

Joe Coscarelli

Drake has contested the claims in “Not like us” and sued the label that released it for defamation.Credit…Jeenah Moon for the New York Times

Drake, who is Currently on tour in AustraliaDefendant Universal Music Group last month for defamation and harassment to release and promote Kendrick Lamars ”Not like us. “

The case that was brought into the US District Court of Southern District in New York is accusing Universal of working to make Lamar -Spurs a “viral hit.” It said the song was “meant to convey the specific, unmistakable and false actual claim that Drake is a criminal pedophile and to suggest that the public should resort to vigilance in response.” Lamar was not named as an defendant in the suit.

Note that the cover art of “Not Like Us” has a photo of Drake’s Toronto home with markers intended to represent the presence of registered sex offenders, the complaint invokes a shooting in residence days after the song’s release that injured a security guard. It calls the attack the “2024 equivalent of ‘Pizzagate'” and quotes two other attempts at offenders in the days followed.

The case was brought on behalf of Drake by Michael J. Gottlieb, a partner at the company Willkie Farr & Gallagher, who previously represented the owner of Washington Pizzeria, targeted by “Pizzagate” conspiracy theorists, and the election workers who are false accused of Rudolph W W ..

Universal Music Group, the label behind both Drake and Lamar, responded to the trial last month with a statement that called the allegations both false and “illogical”, pointing to its long -standing and successful business relationship with Drake.

“We have invested massively in his music, and our employees around the world have worked tirelessly for many years to help him achieve historically commercial and personal financial success,” the label said. “Throughout his career, Drake has intentionally and successfully used UMG to distribute his music and poetry to engage in conventionally scandalous back and forth ‘rap matches’ to express his feelings over other artists. He is now trying to weapon the legal process to dampen an artist’s creative expression. “

Lawyers for Drake said in a new statement ahead of the Super Bowl: “Umg is masked as a master of artistic freedom by calling its actions merely ‘entertainment’, but there is nothing entertaining about pedophilia or abuse of children in the real world.” They added that the proof “will postpone UMG’s gross priority of his own business surplus and executive bonuses over its exclusively signed artists’ well -being and the truth.”