- Drake sued his own label, UMG Recordings, Inc, alleging defamation.
- He accused the label of approving and publishing Kendrick Lamar’s diss track, which the suit said included false and dangerous allegations.
- UMG said it is fighting the case to protect other artists for “having done nothing more than write a song.”
Drake filed a lawsuit against his own label, UMG Recordings, Inc., amid his ongoing beef with Kendrick Lamar.
The rapper, whose full name is Aubrey Drake Graham, accused Universal Music Group of approving and publishing Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us,” which the complaint says includes allegations that UMG “understood were not only false, but dangerous.”
The song “falsely accuses Drake of being a pedophile and calls for violent retribution against him,” according to the lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Wednesday.
“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, through his attorneys, stated in the lawsuit.
Representatives for Drake and UMG did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
UMG told The New York Times that it intends to fight the lawsuit to protect other artists for “having done nothing more than write a song.”
The complaint pointed to one incident in May in which someone opened fire outside his Toronto home, striking the front door and wounding a security guard, who the lawsuit described as “one of Drake’s friends.”
In the days following, the lawsuit said there were two attempted break-ins at his property, one of which involved an individual who dug under the property’s gate with his bare hands and “managed to yell racist slurs and threats against Drake before being escorted off the property.”
The complaint underscored that Lamar was not named as a defendant. It said UMG’s actions in publishing the track were the cause of the string of incidents.
The complaint further said that UMG did not help Drake when he confronted company executives about the situation.
This story is developing. Check back for more information.
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