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Drake‘s team is countering Universal Music Group’s insistence that Kendrick Lamar‘s diss track calling him a pedophile was simply his opinion. The heated feud between rappers Drake and Lamar has been on for over a year, culminating in nine diss tracks between them. Kendrick Lamar dropped the ultimate bomb with his award-winning song, Not Like Us, calling Drake a “pedophile” and a “colonizer.” The track topped the charts for weeks, eventually earning Lamar five Grammy Awards. However, since then, the rap beef has morphed into a full-blown legal battle.
Drake’s company Frozen Moments LLC filed a petition in a Manhattan court, accusing his record label Universal Music Group, of doctoring the success of Not Like Us via a “campaign to manipulate” to ensure the track went viral. Drake filed another lawsuit against UMG, alleging defamation. UMG, which has since tagged the allegations as Illogical and untrue, filed a motion to dismiss the suit this month and a letter motion to stay discovery, filed on March 18. In the documents, Universal Music Group’s legal reps claimed the disputed diss track “conveys nonactionable opinion and rhetorical hyperbole, not fact.”
Drake’s Lawyers Counter Motion to Dismiss Defamation Lawsuit
Drake’s team disputes the insinuation that Kendrick Lamar’s reference to him as a pedophile who should be placed on neighborhood watch simply reflected the 37-year-old rapper’s opinions. In the new filings in response to UMG’s motion to stay discovery, Drake’s team asserts that the record label’s “headline argument” was baseless because the general public already perceived Lamar’s allegations as facts. The documents read in part,
“UMG completely ignores the complaint’s allegations that millions of people, all over the world, did understand [the song] as a factual assertion that [Drake] is a pedophile.”
The filing also condemned UMG for brazenly continuing to publish and promote the song even after Drake faced attacks on his businesses and properties as a result, including a home invasion by a gunman. They also pointed out that UMG knew all along that the public believed the allegations as “true statements of facts.”
Fans Further Implicate Drake Amid Pedophile Allegations
Reacting to the filing, several fans have admitted they indeed believed Kendrick Lamar’s pedophile allegations against Drake without a doubt. However, most pointed out that their conviction stemmed not from Lamar’s diss track, but from a long-held awareness of Drake’s actions over the years. One Reddit user noted,
“To be fair, millions of people believed the claim before the claim was made.”
Another wrote,
“Yeah. To pretend like people weren’t talking about his weird relationships with teenagers long before all this is hilarious.”
A third added,
“We believed it way before. Kendrick just said it out loud.”
A fourth netizen divulged,
“The claim isn’t popular because of the song. The song is popular because the claim already was.”
Fans went on to dig out instances of Drake’s questionable behaviors with minors, including the viral moment he kissed a teenager on stage during a Colorado concert in 2010, and his questionable text exchanges with Millie Bobbie Brown when she was only 14. Explaining Drake’s eagerness to clear his name, one Redditor wrote,
“The problem is, for Drake this is no longer a rap battle, it’s a career and lifestyle battle. Now that everyone is allowed to publicly talk about his many grooming allegations he can no longer ignore the consequences of his actions and that is simply unacceptable.”
UMG previously shared a public statement, denying claims they intentionally moved to harm Drake by publicizing Kendrick Lamar’s diss track, calling it “illogical.” The record followed up by filing a petition to dismiss the suit this month, portraying Drake as a sore loser enraged that he “lost a rap battle he provoked.”
Drake Vs Lamar’s Rap Battle
The beef began cooking after Drake and J.Cole released First Person Shooter in October 2023, rapping about their hip-hop fame and dubbing themselves along with Lamar as “the big three.” Lamar disputed the statement on the track, Like That which also featured Future and Metro Boomin, slamming Drake and J.Cole for insinuating their levels matched his.
J.Cole tapped out of the public diss early, with a public apology to Lamar for “downplaying” his greatness following the release of his beef track 7 Minutes Drill. However, Drake kept up the fight, firing back at Kendrick Lamar with more diss tracks to repel his.
Their back-and-forth rap battle caught public attention with the duo divulging embarrassing revelations about each other with each track, from domestic abuse tendencies to secret kids. Kendrick Lamar’s release of Not Like Us crowned him the undisputed winner in their rap brawl. Following his feeble attempt to refute the pedophilia claims on his clapback track, The Heart Part 6, Drake’s team proceeded to petition Universal Music Group for falsifying the success of Lamar’s diss track Not Like Us and making it go viral despite the potentially damaging impact on Drake’s reputation.
