When your rap track diss battle ends in whiny proto-SLAPP suits, I’m going to suggest you’ve officially lost.
If you ever want to see this dril tweet as a legal filing (two actually), I think it’s in Drake’s semi-SLAPPy demands for discovery and depositions from Universal Music, Spotify, and iHeartRadio for having the temerity to… promote a song from Kendrick Lamar that is the culmination of a back and forth diss track battle between the two.
While most news orgs haven’t provided the actual filings, fear not, Techdirt delivers: here is the pre-action discovery attempt in New York and the defamation lawsuit in Texas.
Both are incredibly stupid, but we’ll get to that.
If you haven’t been living under a rock for the past year, you may be aware that the Canadian rapper/actor Drake and American rapper Kendrick Lamar have been, well, fighting. While it goes back a while, earlier this year it blew up in a series of back and forth diss tracks, with the general consensus being that Kendrick came out of the battle as the clear winner.
We had mentioned that battle twice. Once, to discuss how both sides actually dropped copyright claims and restrictions to ensure the songs traveled far and wide. And another time, to talk about how existing laws already regulated some aspects of AI-generated music.
But this week, Drake took things to a whole new level of stupid.
On Monday, he first filed a pre-litigation discovery motion in New York accusing Universal Music/Interscope and Spotify of doing the RICO in… um… promoting Kendrick’s song. Almost everything about this is ridiculous. Contrary to what some people have said, this isn’t actually a lawsuit. It’s a weird procedure available in New York that allows you to seek discovery before filing the actual lawsuit. As New York-based lawyer Akiva Cohen noted on Bluesky, this is really only supposed to apply to a situation where you need some amount of discovery to find out who a defendant actually is or something like that.
Drake is essentially arguing that Universal Music Group and Spotify engaged in racketeering by… promoting a song. That’s not how any of this works. Heavily promoting a track that’s performing well is standard practice for labels and streaming platforms, not some nefarious scheme. And Drake hired some big-name, high hourly rate lawyers to basically file legal documents that say “the fact that music companies promoted a killer diss track harmed me and should be considered a conspiracy.”
Really.
UMG’s schemes to artificially inflate the popularity of “Not Like Us” were motivated, at least in part, by the desire of executives at Interscope to maximize their own profits. UMG executives have an annual incentive program pursuant to which they are rewarded for meeting and surpassing sales and profits projections, among other metrics. The incentives are largely based on the specific UMG division, rather than the performance of UMG more generally. For example, the annual incentive or bonus of Interscope’s CEO, John Janick, is based 90 percent on the financial success of Interscope and only 10 percent on the financial success of UMG generally. Thus, on information and belief, Mr. Janick and other executives at Interscope have been incentivized to maximize the financial success of Interscope through the promotion of “Not Like Us” and its revitalizing impact on the artist’s prior recording catalog, including his first five studio albums, which are owned by Interscope.
Petitioner has received information that UMG has been taking steps in an apparent effort to conceal its schemes, including, but not limited to, by terminating employees associated with or perceived as having loyalty to Drake. Indeed, UMG has demonstrated that it has no interest in taking responsibility for its misconduct, Over the past several months, Drake has repeatedly sought to engage UMG in discussions to resolve the ongoing harm he has suffered as a result of UMG’s actions. UMG refused to engage in negotiations, and insisted that UMG is not responsible for its own actions. Instead, UMG has pointed the finger at Mr. Duckworth, insisted that Drake should initiate legal action against Mr. Duckworth rather than UMG, and even threatened to bring its own legal claims against Mr. Duckworth if Drake were to pursue claims against UMG.
Streaming and licensing is a zero-sum game. Every time a song “breaks through,” it means another artist does not. UMG’s choice to saturate the music market with “Not Like Us” comes at the expense of its other artists, like Drake. As Drake is Petitioner’s sole owner, and Petitioner owns the copyright to Drake’ entire catalogue, Petitioner suffered economic harm as a result of UMG’s scheme.
Duckworth, by the way, is Kendrick Lamar’s real last name, in case you’re wondering to whom “Mr. Duckworth” refers to here. But, yeah, this all boils down to: UMG promoted the hell out of Kendrick’s song, and it got a ton of engagement and (oh wow!) that was good for Universal and Spotify’s bottom line.
So fucking what? That’s capitalism and marketing, Drake. That’s how it works.
And that last paragraph is particularly stupid. Does this mean that other artists can sue Drake for the times that UMG (yes, also Drake’s label) promoted his music instead of other artists?
The whole thing is garbage.
There are a few arguments in there about some potentially sketchy behavior on the part of UMG in engaging in some payola, but that’s not something where Drake really has much of a leg to stand on. Payola has been happening in the music industry for decades, and every time some piece of it is outlawed, the big labels figure out crafty ways to sidestep the new laws.
Drake also complains about the point we had praised earlier this year, where the copyright restrictions were lifted by UMG:
And in a sea-change for UMG’s internal policy, UMG removed the Song’s copyright restrictions on YouTube and Twitch, thereby “whitelisting” the Song (for the first time in UMG history), which further incentivized influencers to spread the Song
Except that it was reported at the time that the copyright restrictions were also lifted on Drake’s tracks:
But even dumber than all of that is the claim that UMG and Spotify promoting a popular song is “RICO.” You know the Popehat drill: “It’s not RICO dammit.” It’s not. There are a big list of almost impossible to meet conditions to make it RICO and this ain’t it, chief:
Petitioner has a viable cause of action for civil RICO, with predicate acts of wire fraud, mail fraud, and/or bribery for UMG’s payments to unknown third parties in the form of reduced licensing fees to Spotify.
It seems most likely that this lawsuit is “client service.” It is making an angry rich client happy by filing something even if that something is likely to get tossed out of court quickly.
Then, on Tuesday, Drake took things up a notch by seeking a similar kind of pre-complaint discovery against iHeartRadio and UMG in Texas state court. This is using the same big shot lawyers (plus some local counsel). Texas has a rule of civil procedure, 202, that allows for a deposition prior to filing a lawsuit. It’s effectively the same kind of deal as the pre-litigation discovery in New York: in some cases, it may be necessary to use the power of the courts to seek extra info before filing the actual lawsuit.
While Rule 202 is considered pretty broad, it does have limits and I have difficulty seeing how this meets any of the criteria to get such depositions. This time around, it’s basically the same issue as the New York pre-litigation effort, but how iHeartRadio was also… um… helping to get Kendrick’s song listened to:
Here, the limited Rule 202 depositions Petitioner proposes are the most efficient method for him to understand the role of iHeartMedia in UMG’s scheme to unlawfully promote “Not Like Us.” Based on the minimal information already available to Petitioner, the testimony sought is necessary for Petitioner to understand and evaluate his potential claims.
Listen to yourself, man. “Unlawfully promote”? Come on. It’s just promotion, dude. This is pathetic.
And just like the NY filing tried to just throw in a “RICO” like it was an exclamation point, in this Texas filing, Drake throws in a similar “maybe it’s defamation and racketeering” argument with nothing to back it up:
Petitioner has amassed sufficient facts to pursue certain tortious claims against UMG, including, but not limited to, a claim for defamation, but currently lacks factual support necessary to determine whether he may bring claims of civil fraud and racketeering against UMG and its many (as of yet) unidentified co-conspirators who violated payola laws and accepted illicit payments, and other things of value, from UMG without disclosure
At best, this is fishing, and at worst, it’s just a straight up abuse of the courts to scream about how not mad you are that people feel like Kendrick completely destroyed you.
Imagine being such a sore loser in a rap battle that you have to go to court to demand to find out who promoted the song that destroyed you. Imagine being such a sore loser in a rap battle that you had to go to court twice to claim that the song couldn’t possibly be that popular, and it must be a conspiracy against you.
Get a fucking grip.
Perhaps Drake should consider dropping a duet featuring Barbra Streisand, because the Kendrick master diss track is getting a ton of renewed attention, even after breaking records earlier this year. This week, Kendrick was already topping the broader music charts after releasing a surprise album, GNX, a few days ago, but the “Not Like Us” diss track has bounced back up the charts as well.
As I type this, it’s #25 on Apple Music (though there were reports it broke into the top 20 earlier), #42 on Spotify, and #18 on YouTube, and for just Tuesday it was the 8th most watched music video:
Drake’s lawsuits have only served to further humiliate himself. In trying to get revenge on Kendrick through frivolous legal filings, he’s amplified the diss track to a whole new audience, while publicly admitting how much it hurt his feelings. Even worse, you had to legally state, under penalty of perjury, that “Not Like Us” harmed you so much that you could bring two lawsuits about it.
I think that’s one hell of an admission of how much you lost this battle.
Or, as Alex Jaffe hilariously called it on Bluesky: “You used to call me on my self-own.”
