Billboard Women in Music 2025
Drake is ready to unearth Universal Music Group (UMG)’s secrets.
In a pre-trial conference held on Wednesday (April 2) in New York, Judge Jeanette Vargas ruled in favor of the Canadian rapper, denying the label’s motion to stay discovery in his defamation lawsuit against Kendrick Lamar‘s “Not Like Us.”
According to reporter Meghann Cuniff, Drake and his lead attorney, Michael Gottlieb, celebrated with a press release that read, “Now it’s time to see what UMG was so desperately trying to hide.”
They can now proceed with his own request to procure documents including K. Dot’s contracts with UMG as well as metrics that determined compensation, bonuses, and more for Interscope CEO John Janick and other executives over the past five years.
UMG filed the motion on March 18, per Variety, claiming that the “NOKIA” rapper’s initial round of discovery requests would cause “undue burden” and “require costly collection and review of large swaths of hard-copy and electronic data sets, contracts and agreements, and communications.”
Back in January, Drake sued UMG for defamation, harassment, and spreading the “false and malicious narrative” that he is a pedophile as heard on “Not Like Us.” He claimed Universal knew Lamar’s lyrics and images from the Grammy-winning record‘s music video were false and dangerous, but still continued to promote it for profit. He also accused the label of conspiring with Spotify to “falsely inflate streaming numbers” for “Not Like Us.” That claim has since been denied by both companies.
UMG, in turn, filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit entirely just last month, claiming that he was only suing because he “lost a rap battle.”
It read, “Instead of accepting the loss like the unbothered rap artist he often claims to be, he has sued his own record label in a misguided attempt to salve his wounds. Plaintiff’s Complaint is utterly without merit and should be dismissed with prejudice.”
Judge Vargas scheduled a hearing on the motion to dismiss the lawsuit for June 30.
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