Drake's personal label says he turned to lawsuits after “[losing] a rap battle that he provoked”

Drake’s guardian label Common Music Group has dissed the rapper in a authorized response to his defamation lawsuit, claiming he turned to the courts after “[losing] a rap battle” towards Kendrick Lamar.

As reported by Billboard, Common’s attorneys referred to as Drake’s allegations “meritless” of their movement to dismiss and alleged the lawsuit was a last-ditch effort to save lots of face.

“Plaintiff, some of the profitable recording artists of all time, misplaced a rap battle that he provoked and by which he willingly participated,” the submitting reads. “As an alternative of accepting the loss just like the unbothered rap artist he usually claims to be, he has sued his personal file label in a misguided try to salve his wounds.”

In Drake’s lawsuit, he accuses Common of getting “permitted, revealed, and launched a marketing campaign to create a viral hit out of [‘Not Like Us’] that was “supposed to convey the precise, unmistakable, and false factual allegation that Drake is a prison pedophile, and to recommend that the general public ought to resort to vigilante justice in response.”

Turning the accusations again on Drake, UMG identified he additionally engaged in “hyperbolic insults” and “vitriolic allegations” in the course of the Kendrick beef. Certainly, Drake introduced up allegations of home abuse and claimed that another person had allegedly fathered his rival’s son.

Elsewhere within the submitting, UMG mentioned the lyrics of “Not Like Us” are protected by the First Modification: “Diss tracks are a well-liked and celebrated artform centered round outrageous insults, and they’d be severely chilled if Drake’s swimsuit have been permitted to proceed. Hyperbolic and metaphorical language is par for the course in diss tracks — certainly, Drake’s personal diss tracks employed imagery no less than as violent.”

What’s extra, UMG introduced up Drake’s previous help for laws limiting rap lyrics from getting used as proof in courtroom. “As Drake acknowledged, in relation to rap, ‘the ultimate work is a product of the artist’s imaginative and prescient and creativeness’,” their legal professionals added. “Drake was proper then and is improper now.”