UMG has responded to Drake’s defamation lawsuit against them over Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” diss track against him.
In the new lawsuit, Drake made several claims, including that UMG conspired against him to make sure that K.Dot’s “Not Like Us” was successful but using payola and bots.
He says the track alleges that he likes underage girls, which hurts his reputation and his career.
“Not only are these claims untrue, but the idea that we would seek to harm the reputation of any artist — let alone Drake — is illogical. 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 statement reads.
The statement continued, “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.”
UMG ended the statement, adding, “We have not and do not engage in defamation — against any individual. At the same time, we will vigorously defend this litigation to protect our people and our reputation, as well as any artist who might directly or indirectly become a frivolous litigation target for having done nothing more than write a song.”
Fans believe the lawsuit is Drake trying to stop Kendrick Lamar from performing the track at next month’s Super Bowl Halftime show and that he is also trying to force UMG to sue the Compton rapper.
[social_warfare]