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As predicted, Common Music Group has moved to dismiss Drake’s defamation lawsuit over Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.” On Monday (March 17), the world’s largest music firm filed its first court docket response, and sure, they got here out swinging.
“[Drake], some of the profitable recording artists of all time, misplaced a rap battle that he provoked and by which he willingly participated,” UMG said within the movement. “As an alternative of accepting the loss just like the unbothered rap artist he typically claims to be, he has sued his personal report label in a misguided try and salve his wounds. [Drake’s] criticism is totally with out benefit and must be dismissed with prejudice.”
It’s price mentioning that the submitting opened with a quote from Drake’s 2009 traditional, “Profitable”: “Yeah, I would like all of it, that is why I try for it / Diss me, you will by no means hear a reply for it.” If nothing else, the label’s legal professionals knew find out how to make the 32-page authorized doc at the least considerably entertaining.
Of their response, the attorneys argued that “Not Like Us” falls underneath “chilling reliable creative expression safeguarded by the First Modification.” In addition they zeroed in on the visible companion’s “exaggerated imagery,” which notably noticed Lamar smashing an owl-shaped piñata and whispering to a clown that he sees “useless folks.”
One other attention-grabbing level UMG made is that “Not Like Us” didn’t simply “emerge out of skinny air.” As an alternative, they mentioned that Drake performed a job in escalating the feud, with each rappers “hurling more and more vitriolic allegations at one another.” The submitting particularly referenced the Canadian hitmaker’s claims about Lamar’s household — just like the insinuations that his son isn’t truly his and that he bodily abuses his fiancée, Whitney Alford — throughout “Household Issues” and “THE HEART PART 6.”
Elsewhere within the authorized papers, UMG’s authorized staff shared a pleasant reminder of Drake’s personal stance on rap lyrics in court docket. “Notably, lower than three years in the past, Drake himself signed a public petition criticizing ‘the development of prosecutors utilizing artists’ artistic expression in opposition to them’ by treating rap lyrics as literal reality,” the movement learn.
For context, he and several other different musicians signed 2022’s Artwork on Trial: Defend Black Artwork petition, which rallied help behind Younger Thug amid his high-profile RICO trial. Drake’s lawsuit and the Atlanta rapper’s case are clearly two very totally different conditions, so it’ll be attention-grabbing to see if that argument truly holds up in court docket.