Hip-hop fans are reacting to Toronto rapper Drake suing his own record label over the release of the diss track “Not Like Us” by his industry foe Kendrick Lamar.
Drake filed the defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG) in New York City on Wednesday morning.
According to court documents, the rapper blames UMG for knowingly publishing and promoting a song which “was intended to convey the specific unmistakable, and false factual allegation that Drake is a criminal pedophile.”
The papers also accuse UMG, which has represented Drake for over a decade, and Lamar at its subsidiary, Interscope Records since 2012, of launching a campaign to create a viral hit and profit off a rap track that calls for “violent retribution” against him.
This comes after the rapper filed two petitions, which are formal requests to obtain a court order and usually indicative of a lawsuit, in November.
Drake is no longer pursuing one of the two petitions as of Tuesday, which accused UMG of using bots to boost “Not Like Us.”
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Last year, days after Lamar’s song was released on May 4, there were multiple break and enter attempts at Drake’s Toronto home.
In an incident on May 7, at least one man from an armed group of assailants fired shots at the rapper’s house while he and his family were inside.
One bullet struck the front door and another severely injured a security guard, the court documents say.
The next day, a different intruder used his hands to dig a hole under the security fence around Drake’s home and successfully entered the property. He was caught by guards before causing any harm.
Another break-in attempt occurred on May 9, the legal documents say.
“In the two decades leading up to May of 2024, although Drake was constantly in the public eye, nothing remotely like these events had ever happened to him or his family,” they continue.
“But these events were not coincidental. They immediately followed, and were proximately caused by UMG’s actions leading up to and on May 4, 2024.”
The documents also claim the song’s music video and album image, which is an aerial shot of Drake’s Toronto house dotted with digital pins typically used by law enforcement to indicate the presence of a child sex offender, advance the “false and malicious narrative that Drake is a pedophile,” citing lyrics that call him a “certified pedophile,” and a “predator” who needs to be “placed on neighbourhood watch.”
Nonetheless, not everyone agrees with Drake’s decision to take legal action.
“This dude is self-destructing in every way possible,” one person wrote on a subreddit about the singer, which has over 2.5 million members.
“The song was coming off the back of the most talked about rap beef in years between two major artists, I really don’t think the label had to launch much of a campaign for it to be successful,” another user said.
“Kendrick has him in the palm of his hand forever at this point,” someone else wrote.
“You know for somebody who’s supposedly a gangster this is straight soft serve,” another person said.
