Drake's Lawsuit with UMG Explained: Here's What You Need to Know

It finally happened. After a November preview, and then a last-minute fake out, Drake has taken his issues with Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” to a court of law.

On Wednesday, Drizzy filed a lawsuit in federal court against Universal Music Group, alleging defamation, harassment, and deceptive business practices regarding its release and promotion of Lamar's vicious diss track.

Many of the arguments Drake makes are identical to the ones he laid out in his legal petitions against UMG, Spotify, and iHeartRadio back in November, which we broke down here. But there is a major change in emphasis, and a new theory to tie everything together.

Here are the key new takeaways from the 81-page lawsuit. Or, rather, 91 pages if you count the attached exhibits, which include the lyrics to “Not Like Us” and a list of 125 of the most popular TikToks that use “Not Like Us.”

Who is Drake suing, and what for?

Drake is suing UMG Recordings, Inc., the music conglomerate that is in business with both him and Kendrick Lamar. That very fact, actually, is a key part of the theory Drake presents to undergird his suit.

He is suing, as mentioned, for defamation (along with the related category of defamation per se, which just means a type of defamation where you don’t have to prove damages); as well as for second-degree harassment. There’s an additional claim that UMG violated a New York state law against “Deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any business, trade or commerce.”

“Not Like Us” is defamatory, the suit alleges, because it “advance[s] the false and malicious narrative that Drake is a pedophile.” The complaint contains a ton of lyrical analysis. (A representative sentence: “In a play on the dual meaning of minor—a person under the age of 18 and a musical scale—the Recording says that Drake is ‘Tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A-Minor.’”)

The harassment charge comes because Drake says the song calls for violence against him, citing lyrics like “Want action, no accident, and I’m hands-on, He fuck around, get polished.” These “specific and unequivocal threats of violence [have] placed [Drake] in a reasonable fear of physical harm,” the suit says.

The deceptive practices claim dives into much of what Drake alleged in his earlier petition against UMG: that the company used shady practices like bots and pay-for-play to drive up streams and radio play for “Not Like Us.”

His argument that those practices existed is basically the same as it was in November. His only direct evidence of botting is an anonymous “hacker” known only as “Epic” who appeared on a DJ Akademiks stream and claimed he was paid to use bots to “jumpstart” the play count for “Not Like Us” on Spotify. The suit is clear that Drake still does not know who Epic is.

When it comes to pay-to-play, there is, again, the same claim that was made several months ago: that Drake has “information” that someone from UMG paid an independent radio promoter, “who agreed to transfer those payments to radio stations and/or radio station employees.” Where that information came from, and which radio station or stations were involved, are not specified.

Why doesn’t Drake just sue Kendrick Lamar?

The suit goes out of its way to say that it “involves no claim against Kendrick Lamar.” UMG is at fault because they are the ones who put out and promoted the song—a song, the suit says, that contains accusations the label knew were false and would result in public hatred and harm to Drake’s reputation.

The suit also claims that UMG gave the song special weight by promoting it via its own company social media outlets.

What harm did “Not Like Us” cause, anyway?

This question gets to the heart of the lawsuit. Right up front, a shooting in front of Drake’s house on May 7, 2024—days after the release of “Not Like Us”—is mentioned. In the incident, a security guard was seriously wounded.

This incident, along with two others on successive days, are meant to represent the actual harm caused by the song. In addition, the suit says, the climate created by the song made Drake temporarily move his son and mother out of the Toronto area.

“The threat of violence continues to weigh on Drake,” the suit says.

It also cites the “mob-like” response to the song: a ton of online comments branding Drizzy a sex offender and a pedophile; even flyers posted all over Toronto calling him a “sex predator.”

Another type of harm that is alluded to is reputational. The complaint cites a poll by The Economist and YouGov that shows that in the days after “Not Like Us” was released, Drake’s favorability rating dropped by 11% and his unfavorability rose 13%. That poll was conducted on May 12-14 of last year.

Why does Drake think UMG did this?

The suit doesn’t reveal much we didn’t already know in terms of Drake’s thoughts or motivation, so this is perhaps the most notable bit. Drake has a new theory, not mentioned in his previous petitions, about the business behind “Not Like Us.”

The theory has two parts: why UMG wanted to hurt Drake, and why the company wanted to help Kendrick Lamar.

Why would UMG want to hurt Drake?

The lawsuit says that Drake’s contract with UMG is up for renegotiation this year. As a result, the suit theorizes, the company wanted to reduce his leverage in the upcoming negotiations. How best to do that? By getting millions of people to hate him.

“By devaluing Drake’s music and brand, UMG would gain leverage to force Drake to sign a new deal on terms more favorable to UMG,” the suit claims.

This was the claim that UMG would end up denying most vehemently.

“Not only are these claims untrue, but the notion that we would seek to harm the reputation of any artist—let alone Drake—is illogical,” a UMG spokesperson said. “We have invested massively 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.”

Why would the company want to help Kendrick?

This part is a little complicated so bear with us. Drake alleges that after leaving TDE in 2023, Kendrick signed a short-term deal with UMG. So, the theory continues, UMG wanted to entice Kendrick into signing a long-term deal with them—which, Drizzy’s lawyers claim, K.Dot finally agreed to last month. UMG’s need to reel Kendrick in, the suit implies, is what led the company to go so hard in promoting “Not Like Us”—to the point, Drake alleges, of using bots and payola.

There’s actually a part three to the theory, one that is very speculative: that the CEO of Kendrick’s label Interscope, John Janick, was gunning for the top job at UMG, so he was extra motivated to make Lamar’s music super-popular. Also supposedly in contention for the job? Monte Lipman, the head of Republic, the UMG label that releases Drake’s music. The suit implies, without saying outright, that making Kendrick look good, and making Drake look bad, would increase Janick’s chances at running the company upon the exit of chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge.

One issue with this: there are no reports that Grainge wants to leave UMG, and his contract runs until 2028.

What new information did we learn?

The juiciest bits of the suit pertain to the back-and-forth between Drake and Universal before the courts got involved. Drizzy’s attorney sent a letter to UMG complaining about “Not Like Us” back in July that raised the specter of litigation about the song’s claims.

In a phone call a week later, UMG apparently warned Drake that it would be a bad idea to sue—or, as they say in legalese, it “would be improvident…to pursue these claims.” One day after that, Drake sent UMG a letter demanding a retraction of “Not Like Us”’s claims about him.

After that, Drake says, he spent months trying to get some kind of resolution before suing. In his telling, UMG promised that if Drake sued them, they would sue Kendrick, and in that whole mess, the public would have the “perception that he had sued another rapper”—a perception that would be disastrous to the Canadian superstar’s reputation.

What do streamers have to do with anything?

Yes, chat, streamers have made their way into this conflict as well. The suit points out, as did the prior petitions, that UMG took the rare step of “whitelisting” “Not Like Us”—removing the song’s copyright restrictions, so it could be shared without penalty on sites like YouTube and Twitch.

The lawsuit mentions a number of popular streamers who benefitted from this. The CartierFamily, No Life Shaq, Zias!, RDC Gaming, and (of course) Kai Cenat are all named.

Cenat in particular is an interesting one, as Drake actually enlisted the popular streamer on his side in the battle with Kendrick as well, texting Kai to tell him to “stay on stream” in anticipation of one of his diss records coming out.

What role does the Super Bowl play?

Kendrick Lamar is performing at the Super Bowl halftime show next month. The suit implies that if Drake has his way, “Not Like Us” will not be on the set list.

The NFL’s crown jewel is mentioned a number of times in the complaint. It specifically claims that “UMG has made significant financial investments…to arrange for [“Not Like Us”] to be performed” at the big game. In a related move, accuses the company of “negotiating and paying” for the track to be played there.

But “Not Like Us” is just a song, right?

This gets to one of the central claims of Drake’s entire lengthy lawsuit: that because of the intense promotional campaign and the song’s ensuing huge popularity, “the average listener or viewer” now takes “Not Like Us” as truth, rather than “art or hyperbole.” This has led to the damages mentioned above.

Because, the suit claims, Universal released and promoted the song while knowing its central allegations are false, for the sole purpose of driving down Drake’s price in negotiations, they need to be held responsible.

I heard something about claims of antisemitism?

You heard correctly. The lawsuit says that Kendrick’s lyric “You not a colleague, you a fuckin' colonizer” actually “alludes to Drake’s Jewish heritage.”

And what’s this about Oakland?

The suit mistakenly identifies Oakland as “where Lamar grew up.” He was, in the words of his early influence DJ Quik, born and raised in Compton.

What does Drake want out of this?

Money, of course—that’s the main relief available in the civil courts. In addition, he wants UMG to issue a statement admitting that the claims in “Not Like Us” are false, and he wants the company to stop talking about how popular the song is, since he alleges that some of the song’s popularity comes from artificial means.

What does UMG say?

As mentioned above, UMG vehemently denies intentionally harming Drake’s reputation, for contract negotiations or any other reason. In addition, they point out that Drizzy had no problem with rap battles—or the outrageous and sometimes hyperbolic claims made during them—back when he was winning.

“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 about other artists,” a company spokesperson said. “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.”

The company, as might be expected, also strongly objects to the idea that a song can be defamatory, and it sees a slippery slope.

“We have not and do not engage in defamation—against any individual,” the statement continues. “At the same time, we will vigorously defend this litigation to protect our people and our reputation, as well as any artist who might directly or indirectly become a frivolous litigation target for having done nothing more than write a song.”