UMG have called for Drake’s motion to include Grainge’s communications on the matter to be denied, calling it ‘so strained’ as to ‘defy credulity’
Universal Music Group has denied new allegations made by Drake’s lawyers that its British chair and chief executive Lucian Grainge had a “role in and knowledge of the scheme to defame and harass” the Canadian rapper by peer Kendrick Lamar, and that as such the label should “collect, review and produce” communications by Grainge.
Drake is suing UMG – his label Republic’s parent company – over its release of Lamar’s 2024 diss track Not Like Us, which contains the line: “Say, Drake, I hear you like ’em young … Certified Lover Boy? Certified pedophiles.” The artwork for the global hit single features an image of Drake’s home dotted with icons used to identify the homes of registered sex offenders.
Drake has denied the allegations, and in January filed a lawsuit against UMG – not Lamar himself – alleging that it “approved, published and launched a campaign to create a viral hit out of a rap track” that was “intended to convey the specific, unmistakable and false factual allegation that Drake is a criminal paedophile, and to suggest that the public should resort to vigilante justice in response”.
