The long-simmering legal battle between Drake and Universal Music Group (UMG) is back on high heat.
On Aug. 12, Drake’s legal team filed two motions demanding that UMG hand over high-stakes documents related to the release and promotion of Kendrick Lamar’s song, “Not Like Us.” The chart-topping diss track, released in 2024, insinuates that Drake and his associates are involved with pedophilia, among other things.
Specifically, Drake’s team seeks to compel UMG to release text messages and emails from the company’s chief executive, Lucian Grainge, who Drake’s team alleges had “a role in and knowledge of the scheme to defame and harass” the Toronto rap star. Grainge, who has been CEO of UMG since 2010, is widely considered one of the world’s most powerful music executives.
“UMG’s refusal to permit relevant discovery into its CEO’s files is unsupported by law and would prejudice (Drake’s) ability to test and prove his claims,” Drake’s attorney Michael J. Gottlieb wrote in a letter addressed to the district judge of the Southern District of New York.
On Aug. 14, UMG’s legal team dismissed Drake’s recent motion as “a transparent attempt to use discovery to harass UMG and force it to waste time and resources out of spite.”
“The premise of Drake’s motion — that he could not have lost a rap battle unless it was the product of some imagined secret conspiracy going to the top of UMG’s corporate structure — is absurd,” UMG attorney Rollin A. Ransom wrote in a letter addressed to the same district judge. “Sir Lucian is the CEO of a multinational enterprise; his days are spent determining and implementing global strategy, not vetting individual tracks or album covers or driving the release and promotional plans for any one recording.”
In a separate court declaration, Grainge noted that UMG has “invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Drake, including longstanding and critical financial support for his recording career.”
Drake’s lawyers are also seeking an unredacted copy of Lamar’s recording contract with UMG, among other financial and contractual records relevant to the case. Gottlieb said that UMG previously provided a document that appeared to be Lamar’s contract, but said the “vast majority of the 22-page agreement is redacted, rendering it virtually unreadable and incomprehensible.”
A brief history of the legal battle between Drake and UMG
In January of 2025, Drake’s legal team filed an explosive lawsuit accusing UMG of defamation and harassment over the release and promotion of Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us.” The suit alleged that UMG “approved, published and launched a campaign to create a viral hit out of a rap track … intended to convey the specific, unmistakable, and false factual allegation that Drake is a criminal paedophile.”
Released on May 4, 2024, “Not Like Us” was widely considered a knockout punch in the months-long rap feud between Drake and Lamar. The song reached No. 1 on the Billboard charts and broke several streaming records on Spotify. Drake’s legal team alleged that the song is defamatory, citing the song’s lyrics and the single’s cover art, which features a photo of Drake’s Toronto mansion covered with several red markers representing the presence of registered sex offenders.
Drake’s legal team also alleged that Lamar’s song put Drake’s life at risk by encouraging vigilante justice, citing the fact that days after the song was released, a security guard was shot during an incident at the rapper’s mansion in Toronto.
UMG responded to the original allegations with a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, calling it “utterly without merit” and “a misguided attempt to salve his wounds.” The motion also argued that Drake was a willing participant in the rap feud with Lamar and that he encouraged the exchange of “increasingly vitriolic and incendiary ‘diss tracks.’”
In April, Drake’s legal team expanded that lawsuit to incorporate more events, including Lamar’s performance of “Not Like Us” at the 2025 Super Bowl, and his appearance at the 2025 Grammys, where the song swept all five of its nominated categories, including song of the year.
The amended complaint said Lamar’s Super Bowl performance was “orchestrated to assassinate the character of another artist.” It alleged that UMG made “significant financial investments and leveraged its professional connections, via sophisticated and highly organized publicity campaigns to arrange for the massive amplification of defamatory claims to over 133 million viewers at the Super Bowl and more than 15 million viewers at the Grammys.”
In UMG’s new motion to dismiss the suit, its legal team noted that the amended complaint “removed obviously false factual allegations,” and described the new allegations as “astonishing.” The motion, which was reviewed by the Star, also noted that Lamar’s Super Bowl performance omitted the line calling Drake and his associates “certified pedophiles.”
UMG is a multinational music company and the distributor for the record labels of both Drake and Lamar. In 2022, Drake signed a multi-faceted deal with UMG that was reported to be worth as much as $400 million, making it one of the largest recording contracts ever.
