{"id":30505,"date":"2025-07-01T18:16:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T18:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/30505\/"},"modified":"2025-07-01T18:16:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T18:16:09","slug":"drakes-lawyers-allege-umg-is-covering-up-artist-exploitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/30505\/","title":{"rendered":"Drake\u2019s Lawyers Allege UMG Is Covering Up Artist Exploitation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In January of this year, Drake<\/a> filed a lawsuit against Universal Music Group. In it, he accused the label of artificially inflating the success of Kendrick Lamar<\/a>‘s hit diss track, “Not Like Us.” UMG filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit in March, vehemently denying the allegations.<\/a> The Toronto rapper proceeded to file an amended version of the suit in April, including new allegations related to Kendrick’s Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, lawyers for both Drake and UMG attended a hearing to discuss the label’s dismissal request. While Drizzy’s team urged the judge to allow the lawsuit to proceed, UMG’s team fiercely defended “Not Like Us,” insisting that it’s merely an example of the hip-hop tradition of throwing exaggerated jabs in lyrics. \u201cTrash-talking in the extreme,\u201d<\/a> they said, \u201cis not, and should not be treated as, statements of fact.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, a spokesperson for Drake has released a statement, per AllHipHop,<\/a> alleging that UMG is trying to hide artist exploitation.<\/p>\n

Drake UMG Lawsuit
\n \"NBA: <\/p>\n

Dec 1, 2021; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA; Rapper, singer and actor Drake watches the Oklahoma City Thunder take on the Houston Rockets during the second half of an Oklahoma City Thunder game at Paycom Center. Alonzo Adams \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images <\/p>\n

\u201cUMG is desperate to see this case not move forward because the company can\u2019t hide its misconduct<\/a> in a courtroom the way it does in the boardroom,\u201d the statement alleges. \u201cSoon, in addition to facing concerned regulators and investors, the leadership of music\u2019s most powerful label will have to answer for the damage it has caused to every artist that has been silenced, exploited, endangered or discarded.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time of writing, UMG has not publicly responded. <\/p>\n

During the hearing Judge Jeannette Vargas didn’t issue a ruling. She did, however, question how an ordinary listener would interpret Kendrick’s lyrics. \u201cWho is the ordinary listener?\u201d she wondered. \u201cIs it someone who\u2019s going to catch all those references?<\/a> There\u2019s so much specialized and nuanced to these lyrics.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In January of this year, Drake filed a lawsuit against Universal Music Group. In it, he accused the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":30506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[4662,171,2260,975,50,67,132,26021,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-30505","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-drake","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-hip-hop-news","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-universal-music-group","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114779349768137669","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}