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Key Takeaways:

• Drake’s authorized workforce is escalating a defamation case tied to Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.”
• The lawsuit claims United Music Group promoted damaging allegations and used bots to spice up the diss observe’s attain.
• The case highlights how viral moments just like the Super Bowl can affect authorized and cultural narratives in Hip Hop.

On Monday (June 30), Drake’s authorized workforce appeared in a Manhattan federal courtroom, urging a choose to let his defamation lawsuit in opposition to Universal Music Group transfer forward.

UMG, in fact, would like to see all the case get thrown out, however Drake’s facet clearly isn’t backing down with out a struggle. In their initial suit, the Toronto rapper’s attorneys claimed that the world’s largest music firm determined to “publish, promote, exploit and monetize” allegations of pedophilia in Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.”

Some of the lyrics, together with Lamar’s “certified pedophiles” bar, had been even cited in courtroom, in accordance with VIBE. A spokesperson for the “God’s Plan” rapper later issued a press release increasing on their place. “UMG is desperate to see this case not move forward because the company can’t hide its misconduct in a courtroom the way it does in the boardroom,” they wrote on Tuesday (July 1).

It continued, “Soon, in addition to facing concerned regulators and investors, the leadership of music’s most powerful label will have to answer for the damage it has caused to every artist that has been silenced, exploited, endangered or discarded.”

Among the opposite claims within the go well with, Drake accused UMG of “approving, publishing and launching a campaign to create a viral hit from a rap track” using bots. He additionally alleged that his and Lamar’s shared label labored to color him as a “criminal pedophile.”

Though Lamar isn’t the one being sued, “Not Like Us” is clearly on the heart of all of it. The diss spent three non-consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, obtained a large increase from the Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show, and later swept up 5 Grammy Awards that very same February.