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Drake is suing his personal label, Common Music Group (UMG), for spreading the “false and malicious narrative” that he’s a pedophile.
Common Music Group additionally signify Kendrick Lamar, who Drake has been concerned in a long-running beef with.
In Might 2024, Interscope Information, a subsidiary of UMG, launched Lamar’s diss monitor “Not Like Us,” which included lyrics reminiscent of: “Say, Drake, I hear you want ‘em younger.”
Drake, born Aubrey Drake Graham, claims within the lawsuit that Common knew the allegations had been false however “selected company greed over the security and well-being of its artists.” Lamar just isn’t named within the go well with.
It continues: “In controversy, UMG noticed a chance, seized it, and continued to fan the flames.”
The lawsuit has been filed within the US District Court docket for the Southern District of New York. It claims that Common “authorised, revealed, and launched a marketing campaign to create a viral hit out of a rap monitor” that was “meant to convey the precise, unmistakable, and false factual allegation that Drake is a felony pedophile, and to recommend that the general public ought to resort to vigilante justice in response.”
Days after “Not Like Us” was launched, a safety guard was injured in a drive-by capturing at Drake’s mansion in Toronto. He was reported to be in a secure situation per week after the capturing.
In an announcement, UMG instructed The Impartial: “Not solely are these claims unfaithful, however the notion that we might search to hurt the status of any artist—not to mention Drake—is illogical. We’ve got invested massively in his music and our workers around the globe have labored tirelessly for a few years to assist him obtain historic business and private monetary success.”
The lawsuit was filed simply hours after Drake agreed to drop a separate authorized criticism in opposition to UMG and Spotify that claimed that they had schemed to artificially enhance the streaming quantity for “Not Like Us.”
In a court docket submitting obtained by The Impartial final November, Drake claimed that UMG used a community of bots, together with a so-called pay-to-play scheme, to “manipulate and saturate the streaming companies and airwaves” with “Not Like Us”, all to Drake’s detriment.
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In an announcement on the time, a UMG spokesman mentioned, “The suggestion that UMG would do something to undermine any of its artists is offensive and unfaithful. We make use of the best moral practices in our advertising and promotional campaigns. No quantity of contrived and absurd authorized arguments on this pre-action submission can masks the truth that followers select the music they wish to hear.”
Spotify filed opposition papers to Drake’s claims in late December final yr. A spokesperson for the streamings service disputed Drake’s declare that there had been a coordinated effort to advertise Lamar’s tune, saying: “Spotify has no financial incentive for customers to stream ‘Not Like Us’ over any of Drake’s tracks.
“Solely one in every of Spotify for Artists’ instruments, Marquee, was bought on behalf of the tune, for €500 to advertise the monitor in France. Marquee is a visible advert that’s disclosed to customers as a Sponsored Suggestion.”
