On Tuesday, January 14, Drake withdrew his legal action accusing Spotify and Universal Music Group (UMG) of artificially boosting streams of Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.” The withdrawal came less than two months after Drake took multiple legal actions against parties also including iHeartRadio, alleging that various sections of the music industry conspired to make Lamar’s diss track a hit.
The withdrawal of Drake’s New York state petition follows a counter-filing from Spotify that unequivocally rejected the claims and called the action a “subversion of the normal judicial process.” UMG also denied the claims. In the new filing, Drake’s company Frozen Moments LLC said it would voluntarily withdraw the action “without costs to any party.”
While the new filing states that “Spotify has no objection to the withdrawal and discontinuance,” UMG has “reserved its position.” Pitchfork has emailed each company’s respective representatives for comment.
On Wednesday, January 15, Drake newly sued UMG, in a New York federal court, for defamation and harassment, The New York Times reports. The complaint, obtained by Pitchfork, opens with an epigraph from UMG’s chairman and chief executive, Sir Lucian Grainge:
From there, Drake and his legal team invoke the shooting outside the rapper’s Toronto mansion last May. The attack, along with two other alleged attempted intrusions, occurred in the days after Kendrick Lamar released “Not Like Us,” on May 4, in partnership with UMG’s Interscope Records.
“UMG is the ‘world’s largest music company,’ and also the music company that has represented Drake for more than a decade,” the lawsuit reads. “Yet, on May 4, 2024, UMG approved, published, and launched a campaign to create a viral hit out of a rap track that falsely accuses Drake of being a pedophile and calls for violent retribution against him. Even though UMG enriched itself and its shareholders by exploiting Drake’s music for years, and knew that the salacious allegations against Drake were false, UMG chose corporate greed over the safety and well-being of its artists.”
Drake’s legal team, led by attorney Michael J. Gottlieb, says that Lamar’s song “was intended to convey the specific, unmistakable, and false factual allegation that Drake is a criminal pedophile, and to suggest that the public should resort to vigilante justice in response. The Recording is defamatory because its lyrics, its album image (the ‘Image’), and its music video (the ‘Video’) all advance the false and malicious narrative that Drake is a pedophile.”