Don’t you miss the days when rap beefs would culminate in rappers shooting each other in the street? Nowadays, you’ve got Drake suing Universal Music Group (UMG) who he accuses of artificially inflating streams on Kendrick Lamar’s infamous ‘Not Like Us’ diss track, as well as suing them for defamation as the track repeatedly refers to him as a paedophile.
As if the track racking up billions of streams wasn’t bad enough already, Kendrick Lamar performed it live at the Super Bowl last weekend, effectively calling Drake a paedophile in front of an audience of 100M people:
KENDRICK LAMAR
NOT LIKE US🚨LIVE AT THE #SUPERBOWL🚨pic.twitter.com/Kp9SviGWW0
— NFR Podcast (@nfr_podcast) February 10, 2025
Drake issued a statement via his lawyers who I guess now have more ammunition in the bank after the song was performed live at the Super Bowl:
“UMG is masquerading as a champion of artistic freedom by calling its actions merely ‘entertainment,’ but there is nothing entertaining about pedophilia or child abuse in the real world.
“We are confident that the evidence we will ultimately present at trial—including information we’ve already learned and continue to receive since filing the lawsuit—will expose UMG’s gross prioritization of its own corporate profits and executive bonuses over its exclusively signed artists’ well-being and the truth.”
Drake & Kendrick actually used to be buddies, but it all went pear-shaped when Kendrick recorded a verse on Future’s ‘Big 3’ taking shots at Drake over suggestions he was as good a rapper as him. Drake fired back with his own track accusing Kendrick of covering up domestic abuse allegations, and then a couple tracks later, Kendrick ended the beef with ‘Not Like Us’, which included the lyric: ‘Certified Loverboy, Certified ‘paedophile’… trying to strike a chord and it’s probably A Minor.”
The diss track was so successful that it bagged Kendrick five Grammys, including record of the year. How is Drake supposed to have a comeback for that?
There were rumours going around that Kendrick was actually going to omit any references to Drake or paedophilia from the track when he performed it at the Super Bowl, but instead he said every lyric and also looked right at the camera when he said: ‘say Drake, I hear you like em young.’
Funnily enough, Drake and Kendrick are both signed by UMG, so this lawsuit must be more than just a little awkward for them.
UMG previously released a statement regarding Drake’s allegations:
“Not only are these claims untrue, but the notion 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.
“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 [Universal] for distributing that artist’s music.”
Tupac and Biggie would be rolling in their graves…
For the time Drake caught some flack for texting a then-17-year-old Billie Eilish, click HERE. Doesn’t really help himself, does he?
