19 hours Ago By Kevin E G Perry
Drake ’s ongoing defamation lawsuit against his own record label, Universal Music Group (UMG), took another turn today as a judge in New York ruled that his legal team can begin the discovery process. At a pre-trial conference on Wednesday morning, Judge Jeanette Vargas decreed that Drake's representatives can go ahead with the process, which is likely to include deposing key executives and requesting document production. UMG had previously requested that the court delay discovery .
That motion has now been denied, meaning that Drake can proceed with requesting access to documents that UMG has called “highly commercially sensitive”, including Lamar’s contracts with the record label. In a statement to The Independent , Drake’s lead attorney Michael Gottlieb said: “Now it's time to see what UMG was so desperately trying to hide.” UMG had said the request would “require costly collection and review of large swaths of hard-copy and electronic data sets, contracts and agreements, and communications”.
In January, Drake accused UMG of spreading the “false and malicious narrative” that he is a pedophile with the release of Lamar’s song “Not Like Us” , which includes the lyrics: “Say, Drake, I hear you like em’ young.” Lamar is not named in the lawsuit; however, Drake additionally claimed that UMG knew the accusations were false but chose corporate greed over the safety and well-being of its artists. Last month, UMG branded Drake’s lawsuit a “misguided attempt to salve his wounds” and requested the rapper’s complaint be “dismissed without prejudice.
” “Plaintiff, one of the most successful recording artists of all time, lost a rap battle that he provoked and in which he willingly participated. Instead of accepting the loss like the unbothered rap artist he often claims to be, he has sued his own record label in a misguided attempt to salve his wounds,” read the motion filed to the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. It went on to recount the details of Drake and Lamar’s infamous rap battle , which kicked off in the spring of 2024.
“Over the course of approximately two months, they exchanged increasingly vitriolic and incendiary ‘diss tracks,’ sometimes responding within hours of each other. Drake encouraged the feud,” UMG claimed. “For example, when he felt that Lamar was taking too long to respond, Drake released a second recording in which he goaded Lamar to continue the public rap battle.
Lamar did just that, and collectively Drake and Lamar released a total of nine tracks taking aim at each other. Multiple commentators declared Lamar to be the ‘winner’ of the battle.” The filing further stated that “Drake has been pleased to use UMG’s platform to promote tracks leveling similarly incendiary attacks at Lamar, including, most significantly, that Lamar engaged in domestic abuse [in his song ‘Family Matters’].
” “But now, after losing the rap battle, Drake claims that ‘Not Like Us’ is defamatory. It is not,” it continued. It argues that because Drake’s lawsuit is almost entirely focused on “Not Like Us,” it “disregards the other Drake and Lamar diss tracks that surround ‘Not Like Us’ as well as the conventions of the diss track genre, and, thus, critically ignores the context of the dispute.
” In a statement shared with The Independent at the time, Gottlieb called UMG’s motion “a desperate ploy to avoid accountability.”.
