Legal professionals for Universal Music Group (UMG) formally responded to Drake’s federal lawsuit against the major label right now (March 17) and requested the court docket to dismiss the defamation case. The court docket submitting opens with some lyrics from Drake’s memorable So Far Gone track “Successful”: “Yeah, I need all of it, that’s why I attempt for it/Diss me, you’ll by no means hear a reply for it.”
After the epigraph, UMG’s legal professionals argue: “Plaintiff [Drake], some of the profitable recording artists of all time, misplaced a rap battle that he provoked and through which he willingly participated. As an alternative of accepting the loss just like the unbothered rap artist he typically claims to be, he has sued his personal document label in a misguided try to salve his wounds. Plaintiff’s Grievance is completely with out benefit and needs to be dismissed with prejudice.”
The movement goes on to explain the feud between Drake and Kendrick Lamar, saying {that a} public beef is “not distinctive on the earth of rap.” In truth, the legal professionals additionally praise Drake as “a prolific rap feud combatant, having traded diss tracks with quite a few artists together with Pusha T and Meek Mill.”
UMG’s legal professionals additionally word that Drake and Lamar’s feud included a number of songs with outlandish lyrics and insinuations. The most well-liked and profitable diss monitor of the battle, Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” due to this fact doesn’t differ tremendously from the opposite songs, because it additionally “consists of hyperbolic insults,” they argue.
“Drake, who had no issues utilizing UMG’s platform to publish slurs about Lamar throughout their rap feud, now claims that ‘Not Like Us’ is defamatory,” the legal professionals state. “Drake fails to state a declare for defamation as a result of ‘Not Like Us’ conveys nonactionable opinion and rhetorical hyperbole, not truth, and since Drake can not adequately allege that UMG acted with precise malice.”
Legal professionals for UMG go on to defend the label in opposition to Drake’s claims of harassment and improper promotion of “Not Like Us.”
In an announcement shared with Pitchfork, Michael J. Gottlieb, Drake’s lead lawyer, mentioned: “UMG needs to faux that that is a couple of rap battle with a view to distract its shareholders, artists and the general public from a easy fact: A grasping firm is lastly being held answerable for making the most of harmful misinformation that has already resulted in a number of acts of violence. This movement is a determined ploy by UMG to keep away from accountability, however we’ve got each confidence that this case will proceed and proceed to uncover UMG’s lengthy historical past of endangering, abusing and benefiting from its artists.”
