Now that Kendrick Lamar has already had the last laugh in his high-profile fiery rap feud against Drake, it’s only natural that the latter is turning to other means to bring him down. But what’s the rush?
While fans are swaying to Kendrick Lamar’s latest GNX bangers, our “Certified Lover Boy” Drake is vehemently trying to drag him out of the music room and into the courtroom. Why? Probably only because he failed to come up with a good enough diss that would make people forget about “Not Like Us.” This bitter rivalry, which began as a healthy competition between the two rappers in the early 2010s, went silent after a shooting took place outside Drake’s residence in May (via Variety), but it’s now firing up again.
On Monday, Nov. 25, Drake filed the first legal petition against Universal Music Group in Manhattan, accusing the company of artificially boosting the popularity of Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us.” While the company already responded to Drake’s pages-long accusations, labeling them “offensive and untrue,” Drake and his lawyers aren’t buying any of it. Just a day after this petition went into court, Drake doubled down on his case by filing another petition in Texas on Nov. 26.
The first petition aimed to expose Universal’s conspiracy with Spotify and Apple to generate the false impression that Lamar’s song was more popular than it was in reality. However, the second action has come off more as a defamation suit, claiming that Universal promoted the diss track against Drake despite the knowledge that it falsely accused the rapper of pedophilia, per Variety.
UMG could have refused to release or distribute the song or required the offending material to be edited and/or removed. But UMG chose to do the opposite.”
The petition claims that “UMG designed, financed, and then executed a plan to turn “Not Like Us” into a viral mega-hit with the intent of using the spectacle of harm to Drake and his businesses to drive consumer hysteria and, of course, massive revenues.” Clearly, UMG was thinking of business at the end of the day, but Drake has taken it as a betrayal.
Drake’s attorneys have also claimed that UMG “funneled payments” to iHeart, the country’s largest radio network, as part of a “pay-to-play scheme” to promote the song on the radio. But what’s illegal about this? If Drake presents Lamar’s track as an attempt to defame him, he might also become answerable for his own disses against Lamar. Though the tracks failed miserably at doing their job, Drake did accuse Lamar of domestic abuse in his song “Family Matters.”
Probably for this reason, the second petition stops short of actually alleging defamation, though it mentions that Drake’s team has “amassed sufficient facts to pursue certain tortious claims against UMG, including, but not limited to, a claim for defamation.” The only thing stopping them, apparently, is a lack of “factual support” against UMG and its “unidentified co-conspirators who violated payola laws and accepted illicit payments.”
Online responses to Drake’s petitions have been equally split between people praising him for exposing UMG’s alleged wrongdoings and calling him a sore loser for being unable to handle a simple rap feud defeat. While one Drake fan wrote “Keep going Dawg, Take them down,” another quipped “If there was one rapper that would call the police after losing a rap battle, it was always going to be Drake.” Either way, the subsequent events are going to be interesting, to say the least.
Published: Nov 27, 2024 01:38 pm