{"id":65336,"date":"2025-08-13T15:05:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T15:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/65336\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T15:05:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T15:05:07","slug":"drake-lawyers-allege-universal-head-lucian-grainge-personally-involved-in-kendrick-lamar-diss-track-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/65336\/","title":{"rendered":"Drake lawyers allege Universal head Lucian Grainge \u2018personally involved\u2019 in Kendrick Lamar diss track | Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Drake\u2019s lawsuit continues against his record label\u2019s parent company, Universal Music Group (UMG), his lawyers have claimed that UMG\u2019s British chair and chief executive Lucian Grainge had a \u201crole in and knowledge of the scheme to defame and harass\u201d Drake<\/a>, and have requested that UMG produce texts and emails by Grainge.<\/p>\n

UMG has previously denied access to those communications, stating that Grainge has \u201cno meaningful involvement in the matters and decisions at issue in this litigation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Drake is suing UMG over its release of Kendrick Lamar\u2019s diss track Not Like Us, which contains the line \u201cSay, Drake, I hear you like \u2019em young \u2026 Certified Lover Boy? Certified pedophiles\u201d. The track was hugely popular, reaching No 1 in the US and UK, and was performed at the 2025 Super Bowl half-time show. Its artwork features an image of Drake\u2019s home dotted with icons used to identify the homes of registered sex offenders.<\/p>\n

Drake has strenuously denied the allegation that he is a paedophile. In his lawsuit filed in January, UMG is alleged to have \u201capproved, published and launched a campaign to create a viral hit out of a rap track\u201d, that was \u201cintended to convey the specific, unmistakable, and false factual allegation that Drake is a criminal paedophile, and to suggest that the public should resort to vigilante justice in response\u201d. Drake is not suing Lamar himself.<\/p>\n

UMG said the suit was \u201cutterly without merit\u201d but in April, Drake\u2019s lawyers added an amendment to the suit, arguing that the Super Bowl performance \u201cfurther solidified the public\u2019s belief in the truth of the allegations against Drake\u201d. UMG said Drake was \u201cbeing misled by his legal representatives into taking one absurd legal step after another\u201d.<\/p>\n

UMG claim that Grainge (pictured) \u2018is not involved in record releases or marketing activities, even high-profile ones\u2019. Photograph: Taylor Hill\/FilmMagic<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Drake\u2019s lawyers filed two new motions in the case, calling on the judge in the case to compel UMG to \u201ccollect, review, and produce\u201d relevant documents from Grainge, arguing: \u201cUMG\u2019s refusal to permit relevant discovery into its CEO\u2019s files is unsupported by law and would prejudice plaintiff\u2019s ability to test and prove his claims.\u201d<\/p>\n

The motion argues that Drake \u201cnow also has reason to believe that Grainge was personally involved in decisions made regarding the marketing and promotion of [Not Like Us] around its release \u2026 Given that plaintiff has alleged Grainge to be one of the individuals at UMG who acted with actual malice, plaintiff is entitled to seek discovery into Grainge\u2019s files for the purpose of proving Grainge\u2019s actual malice\u201d.<\/p>\n

A letter from UMG\u2019s legal team to Drake\u2019s in July, denying access to Grainge\u2019s documents, reads: \u201cUMG has maintained since our first meet and confer on this topic that Sir Lucian had no meaningful involvement in the matters and decisions at issue in this litigation. Sir Lucian runs a global multinational company; he is not involved in record releases or marketing activities around individual tracks, even high-profile ones.\u201d It adds that \u201cto the extent his documents and communications contain any (limited) relevant information, it is expected to be cumulative and duplicative\u201d of other UMG staff communications that the company has agreed to make available.<\/p>\n

Lawyers for Drake claim UMG\u2019s position has slightly changed from a previous claim of \u201cno role in the matters\u201d, to \u201cno meaningful involvement\u201d.<\/p>\n

The second motion from Drake\u2019s team seeks a different set of documents, \u201crelated to UMG\u2019s historical censorship\u201d of artists, arguing that UMG has the right to censor works when they contain defamatory statements, and has previously exercised that right.<\/p>\n

It also argues that UMG encouraged competition between two of its labels: Republic, which releases Drake\u2019s music, and Interscope, which releases Lamar\u2019s. The specific allegation is \u201cthat the incentive structure for executives at UMG\u2019s labels motivated UMG to defame Drake\u201d. The motion requests various financial documents, as well as Lamar\u2019s unredacted record contract.<\/p>\n

UMG has not commented on the newly filed motions. The Guardian has contacted the company\u2019s legal team for comment.<\/p>\n

UMG is seeking to have the case dismissed, claiming in March<\/a> that Drake \u201clost a rap battle that he provoked and in which he willingly participated \u2026 diss tracks are a popular and celebrated artform centred around outrageous insults, and they would be severely chilled if Drake\u2019s suit were permitted to proceed\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Drake\u2019s lawsuit continues against his record label\u2019s parent company, Universal Music Group (UMG), his lawyers have claimed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-65336","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}