Drake sues Universal Music for defamation related to Kendrick Lamar diss track 'Not Like Us'

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Drake sues Universal Music for defamation related to Kendrick Lamar diss track 'Not Like Us'

2025-01-16 05:22 Last Updated At：05:32

A hip-hop superstar beef was cranked up another notch Wednesday when Drake sued Universal Music Group for defamation over rival Kendrick Lamar's diss track “Not Like Us.”

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New York City, alleges UMG — the parent record label for Drake and Lamar — published and promoted the track even though it included false pedophilia allegations against Drake and suggested listeners should resort to vigilante justice. Lamar is not named in the suit.

The result, the suit says, was intruders shooting a security guard and two attempted break-ins at Drake’s Toronto home, online hate and harassment, a hit to his reputation and a decrease in his brand's value before his contract renegotiation with UMG this year.

“The lawsuit is not about the artist who created ‘Not Like Us,’" the lawsuit says, referring to Lamar. “It is, instead, entirely about UMG, the music company that decided to publish, promote, exploit, and monetize allegations that it understood were not only false, but dangerous.”

The suit later alleges, “UMG did so because it understood that the Recording's inflammatory and shocking allegations were a gold mine.”

And, the suit claims, the music company has made large investments and used its connections to arrange for “Not Like Us” to be performed at next month's Super Bowl, where Lamar will be the halftime entertainment.

The lawsuit, which is seeking a trial and an undisclosed amount of money for damages, also repeated allegations in other legal filings that UMG falsely pumped up the popularity of “Not Like Us” on streaming services.

The track is nominated for five Grammys, including record of the year and song of the year.

UMG disputed the lawsuit's allegations in a statement Wednesday afternoon.

“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," the company 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.”

The company added: “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. 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. ”

Representatives for Lamar did not respond to emails seeking comment.

The feud between Drake, a 38-year-old Canadian rapper and singer and five-time Grammy winner whose full name is Aubrey Drake Graham, and Lamar, a 37-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner, is among the biggest in hip-hop in recent years, with two of the genre’s biggest stars at its center.

The two were occasional collaborators more than a decade ago, but Lamar began taking public jabs at Drake starting in 2013. The fight escalated steeply last year.

Drake's lawyers, from New York-based Willkie Farr & Gallagher, said the lawsuit seeks to hold UMG accountable for knowingly promoting false and defamatory allegations against him. They said the shooting and break-in attempts at Drake's home, and the online vitriol, prompted him to move his family out of the house, and that he fears for his and their safety.

“Beginning on May 4, 2024 and every day since, UMG has used its massive resources as the world’s most powerful music company to elevate a dangerous and inflammatory message that was designed to assassinate Drake’s character, and led to actual violence at Drake’s doorstep,” the law firm said in a statement.

“This lawsuit reveals the human and business consequences to UMG’s elevation of profits over the safety and well-being of its artists, and shines a light on the manipulation of artists and the public for corporate gain,” it said.

Chief Justice Roberts pauses deadline for return of Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador

2025-04-08 04:08 Last Updated At：04:11

WASHINGTON (AP) — Chief Justice John Roberts agreed Monday to pause a midnight deadline for the Trump administration to return a Maryland man mistakenly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

The temporary order comes hours after a Justice Department emergency appeal to the Supreme Court arguing U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis overstepped her authority when she ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia returned to the United States.

The administration has conceded that Abrego Garcia should not have been sent to El Salvador because an immigration judge found he likely would face persecution by local gangs.

But he is no longer in U.S. custody and the government has no way to get him back, the administration argued.

Xinis gave the administration until just before midnight to “facilitate and effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return.

“The district court’s injunction—which requires Abrego Garcia’s release from the custody of a foreign sovereign and return to the United States by midnight on Monday—is patently unlawful,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in court papers, casting the order as one in “a deluge of unlawful injunctions” judges have issued to slow President Donald Trump's agenda.

The Justice Department appeal was directed to Roberts because he handles appeals from Maryland.

The Trump administration is separately asking the Supreme Court to allow Trump to resume deportations of Venezuelan migrants accused of being gang members to the same Salvadoran prison under an 18th century wartime law.

The federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, denied the administration's request for a stay. “There is no question that the government screwed up here,” Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson wrote in a brief opinion accompanying the unanimous denial.

The White House has described Abrego Garcia’s deportation as an “administrative error” but has also cast him an MS-13 gang member. Attorneys for Abrego Garcia said there is no evidence he was in MS-13.

“The Executive branch may not seize individuals from the streets, deposit them in foreign prisons in violation of court orders, and then invoke the separation of powers to insulate its unlawful actions from judicial scrutiny,” Abrego Garcia’s lawyers wrote in a response filed moments after Roberts issued his temporary pause.

Xinis wrote that the decision to arrest him and send him to El Salvador appears to be “wholly lawless,” explaining that little to no evidence supports a “vague, uncorroborated” allegation that Abrego Garcia was once an MS-13 member.

Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran national who has never been charged or convicted of any crime, was detained by immigration agents and deported last month.

He had a permit from DHS to legally work in the U.S. and was a sheet metal apprentice pursuing a journeyman license, his attorney said. His wife is a U.S. citizen.

In 2019, an immigration judge barred the U.S. from deporting Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.

A Justice Department lawyer conceded in a court hearing that Abrego Garcia should not have been deported. Attorney General Pam Bondi later removed the lawyer, Erez Reuveni, from the case and placed him on leave.